A presentation by Dr. Vieregge, head of R&D at Hydro Aluminium Rolled Products/Bonn, provided an impetus on the subject of "Sustainable Material Selection in Vehicles from a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) Perspective" and thus touched on one of the current and primarily discussed focal points to which the Expert Committee “Aluminium” will devote itself.

As a result of the first workshop, an initial focus of topics was identified, including green aluminium, LCA, eco-design, ICME (Integrated Computation Material Engineering), additive manufacturing and digitalization. The topic of sustainability and environmental protection can be further advanced here, for example, through appropriate material developments, seperation and recycling concepts. Furthermore, the end-of-life aspect was identified as a central point in product planning and technology selection, as well as an early integration of the topics of recyclability and disassembly in the product design process. The core topic of the Expert Committee “Aluminium” is to work out these interfaces in more detail and identify concrete topics between universities/institutes and industry in order to develop joint solutions.

The next meeting of the Expert Committee “Aluminium” will be held as an online meeting on 20 April 2021.

Dr. Blanka Lenczowski & Dr.-Ing. Carmen Schäfer
Head of EC Aluminium