As part of the project, a modernised pilot production line is planned to be launched. The line will have dedicated features which, after proper configuration and connection with the base melting and casting line, will enable the production process of high-quality billets.

It is necessary to develop partial technologies for charge preparation and configuration, melting, heat treatment, and to verify current technologies for alloying, refining and billet casting. This will make it possible to develop a highly efficient, repeatable and stable LCO2ET® technology for manufacturing billets from materials with a high scrap content, with a clearly reduced environmental impact.

The scope of work will include developing guidelines for the adopted assumptions of the pilot line by casting billets from selected 6xxx series aluminium alloys with a specified scrap content, developing homogenisation process parameters, conducting extrusion process tests, and creating a digital twin of the melting furnace, i.e. a representation of key furnace characteristics based on soft mathematical models and connected through data exchange and processing.

It is necessary to carry out R&D work involving the development of casting parameters for billets with different scrap contents and the assessment of their quality. Homogenisation parameters will be developed, and the influence of process conditions, such as cooling rate, holding times and holding temperatures, on the structure and properties of the billets will be examined. The next stage will be the verification of cast and homogenised billets through extrusion trials.

These tests will make it possible to determine the impact of the amount of scrap on extrusion susceptibility, surface quality, structure and properties of the extruded profiles. In parallel, as part of the task involving the development of a digital twin of the melting furnace, it will be necessary to test statistical hypotheses concerning the significance of process parameters affecting the amount of dross generated, and then to develop a methodology for preparing process data from the scrap melting process.

During the work, multi-variant mathematical models will be developed to predict metal yield as a function of melting process parameters, including, among others, the form of scrap, the share of scrap fraction in the melt and chemical composition. Subsequently, a digital representation of the melting furnace characteristics will be created, enabling the testing of non-standard process parameter settings, significantly shortening experiment times and clearly reducing the cost of developing a melting technology that takes into account possible conditions resulting from uncertainty in scrap supply and fluctuations in the composition of scrap used for melts.