Whether they're in space or on the ground, the aerospace and related materials industries have by necessity been at the forefront of AM initiatives.
      In order to meet growing world demand, Alcoa, the world's leading aluminum aerospace alloy developer, will invest $90 million to increase aerospace plate production by 30 percent. The investment will add 75,000 sq. ft. (6,975 sq. m.) and 54 high-paying jobs to Alcoa's 5.5 million sq. ft. (511,500 sq. m.) Davenport Works Facility in Davenport, Iowa. Alcoa alloys are used in virtually every plane built in the world.
      While some aluminum smelters in the U.S. Northwest have eliminated inventory in a big way in order to just sell their pure electricity to the struggling West Coast power grid, others are seizing that opportunity to grow their own production.
      Even as one of its providers -- Goldendale in Oregon -- was scaling back production in December 2000, Norsk Hydro's Hydro Aluminum Metal Products-North America was just going online with a revolutionary $33 million remelt plant in Henderson, Ky., just across the Ohio River from Evansville, Ind. The plant uses just 5 percent of the energy an ordinary smelter would use, and it does so with a mere seven employees per shift, due to its high degree of automation. That puts a different demand on the work force, says Hydro Aluminum Metal Products President James M. Walters, asking them "not to do a task, but to understand a computer system." It's just the type of job states clamor for, and the technology plays the role of improving both quality and productivity.
      The economics of such an operation are pretty straightforward even if the gadgetry, at first glance, isn't.
      "The cost at a smelter is one-third energy, one-third labor and one-third raw materials," explains Walters. "And the cost at a smelter is maybe $4,000 per ton, while at a remelter it's more like $400 a ton."
      "Go around the industry, see who has the equipment and who doesn't, and you'll see the financial differences on their balance sheets," adds Lars Narvestad, senior vice president.
      With the energy crisis in what was prime smelter territory in the U.S. Northwest, Hydro is taking advantage with its remelt technology and the ultimate sales point of aluminum itself.
      "It's an energy-demanding industry from a smelter point of view," says Narvestad. "The beauty of aluminum is its life cycle -- you can recycle it an infinite number of times, and only use 5 percent of the original energy. So it gets better from an environmental point of view."
      The new plant will primarily serve automotive industry OEMs in the region, especially those serving Toyota plants in both Princeton, Ind. and Georgetown, Ky. Together with another plant in Monett, Mo. (acquired with the purchase by Hydro of Wells Aluminum), the company can produce 175,000 tons of remelt a year in the Midwest alone. Next comes a similar plant in Madrid, Spain. And the company plans another plant in the U.S. Southwest. But Henderson is literally where it's at right now, because, as Narvestad points out, not only are energy and talent both available and affordable, the community is in the mainline of aluminum use.
      "Draw a line from Chicago south, to just west of Dallas, and you're near about 70 percent of U.S. aluminum industry consumption," he says.
      Narvestad and Walters see a larger percentage of consumption being recycled rather than virgin material, which holds down costs.
      "We refer to it as the aluminum bank," says Narvestad. "It's out there in a car or a house. It comes back to society, and it's our challenge to take it back in an efficient way."
      "Being competitive is more than price per pound; it's also quality of product," says Walters, "so the downstream fabricators can be as efficient as they can."
      That downstream automotive economy shows no signs of slowing: Toyotetsu America will soon open a $12 million, 174,000-sq.-ft. (16,182-sq.-m.) plant in Owensboro, Ky., expected to employ 120 by its opening in late 2002. Hydro's plant, as well as a host of others in the area (Alcan, KBAlloys), will be ready.