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TU Freiberg, MgF Inaugurate Magnesium Hot Rolling Mill

11/23/2010 - Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg and MgF Magnesium Flachprodukte GmbH inaugurated a new hot rolling mill for magnesium. The mill will be operated by the university’s Institute of Metal Forming, extending a production line for magnesium flat products developed jointly by the university and MgF.

Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg (Freiberg University of Mining and Technology) and MgF Magnesium Flachprodukte GmbH inaugurated a new hot rolling mill for magnesium.
 
Built with €7.5 million in funding from the state of Saxony, the mill will be operated by the university’s Institute of Metal Forming, extending a production line for magnesium flat products developed jointly by the university and MgF.
 
Magnesium weighs around a quarter as much as steel and is 35% lighter than aluminum, according to the organizations. Parts made from magnesium are attractive for automotive OEMs; however, the material has only been used in the form of castings, for example in the chassis or in transmission housings and engine blocks. For large body parts, affordable magnesium sheets are required.
 
Magnesium research in Freiberg is headed by Professor Rudolf Kawalla, Director of the Institute of Metal Forming at TU Bergakademie. “The hot rolling mill is a major step forward in our research efforts to develop magnesium into a material for day-to-day use,” said Kawalla.
 
Magnesium sheet can also be used in engineering and other areas of industry where weight reduction is important. For ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe, the magnesium activities add to the range of lightweighting materials the company produces for areas such as the auto industry.
 
MgF and the Institute of Metal Forming at TU Bergakademie Freiberg jointly developed a concept for the production of magnesium sheet using a casting-rolling line to manufacture flat strip directly from molten magnesium. The organizations say this is a cost-efficient process due to significantly lower costs for starting materials, reduced material and energy consumption, and fewer production steps than the conventional route for flat magnesium.
  
The new rolling mill reduces the 4- to 7-mm thick magnesium strip from the casting-rolling line to a thickness of just over 1 mm. The mill processes up to 2 tonnes of magnesium strip per hour at a rolling speed of more than 80 meters per minute. It was started up by Prof. Rudolf Kawalla and Dr. Hans-Peter Vogt.
 
The inauguration was part of a two-day symposium on the subject of lightweighting with magnesium at TU Bergakademie, organized by ThyssenKrupp and the university and attended by representatives from academia and industry.
 
MgF is a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG, which is part of the ThyssenKrupp Group and one of Europe’s leading producers of carbon flat steel.