Constellium announced that its facility in Muscle Shoals, Alabama has been selected by the US Department of Defense (DoD) for an investment of $23 million under Title III, Defense Production Act to rebuild its Direct Chill aluminum casting center.

The funding was awarded via the Defense Production Act Investments (DPAI) Program. DPAI is overseen by the Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Program (MCEIP) in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy.

Constellium will use the funds to install advanced casting equipment on the site of a dismantled casting center intended to add up to 300 million pounds of annual casting capacity. With this added capacity, the plant expects to increase its recycled input, reduce its use of primary metal, and provide the USindustrial base an additional, self-reliant, domestic source of supply for aluminum rolling ingot.

In recent years, domestic US capacity to cast rolling ingot has lagged the growing demand for flat rolled aluminum products across multiple manufacturing industries, forcing US rolling mills to rely on imported slab to meet customer demand.

Flat-rolled aluminum products, including sheet and plate, are critical material inputs for the defense, aerospace, automotive, packaging and transportation industries.

The expected additional domestic casting capacity enabled by this joint effort with the DoD will help secure the capacity to supply rolling ingot to US rolling mills and provide a vital surge capacity to the DoD if needed to support US security commitments around the globe.

Constellium Muscle Shoals is a major aluminum sheet supplier for the packaging and automotive markets. The plant has the capacity to produce more than 1 billion pounds per year of finished aluminum coils. Muscle Shoals also operates a world-class recycling center able to recycle the equivalent of 20 billion aluminum cans per year.

Muscle Shoals plant.

Muscle Shoals’ current capabilities for flat rolled products include seven production units:

• Element 13: The recycling facility has the capacity to recycle nearly 20 billion cans per year, positioning Constellium as one of the world’s largest recyclers of used beverage cans (UBC).

• Casting: The casthouse has five melting furnaces, six holding furnaces, and five electro-magnetic casting pits that are capable of producing six ingots per drop, with widths from 65" to 77".

• Hot Mill: All of the plant’s products are processed through hot rolling. The hot mill consists of three mills that compress 30,000-pound slabs of aluminum.

• Cold Mill: The cold rolling facility comprises two three-stand mills and one five-stand mill. The three-stand tandem cold mills are used for automotive sheet and finished body stock for aluminium cans. The five-stand mill finish rolls end and tab stock for aluminium cans. These mills are equipped with modern controls, including a hydraulic automatic gauge control and a shape meter. Finished products vary in thickness from approximately .0080 inches to much heavier gauges, and are conditioned by the cold working of the mill for formability and strength as per customer specifications.

• Coating: The final stop for end stock and similar packaging products is the coating facility, with a high-speed, state-of-the-art coating line that trims, levels, pre-treats, rinses, applies, and cures an organic coating on both sides of the aluminum sheet. These coating options can be clear base coats or a variety of colors and protective finishes, depending on end use.

• Finishing: The sheet finishing department consists of multiple slitting operations to trim according to customer specification. Constellium recycles 100% of all trim scrap, collected through a quick draft system and returned to the casthouse. The finishing department produces 3 million lbs per day on average.

• Pack/Ship: In addition to supplying aluminum beverage packaging to prominent brands, Muscle Shoals supplies coils of Auto Body Sheet substrate to the CALP line in Bowling Green, KY. The automotive sheet is prepped, packed, and loaded for shipment to Bowling Green, to be prepped for automotive parts such as car hoods, doors, roofs, and structural parts.