Hydro sponsored Alupro, organizing the Alu D&T Challenge in its 3rd year, with a journey to Hydro’s Grevenbroich rolling plant in Germany as the special top prize for 2016. So Leon took his teacher and mother and followed Hydro´s UK Sales Director Nigel Gibbon and Alupro´s Diana Caldwell – on a memorable Rhineland trip.
The group started at AluNorf, the world´s largest plant for rolling and remelting of aluminium – and was amazed by the dimensions of furnaces and mills, of the 60 cm thick slabs being hot rolled to jumbo coils of 2-5 mm, interim step for millions of beverage cans or billions of yoghurt lids – all fully recyclable, again and again.
At Hydro´s Grevenbroich plant, Leon Andrews and his group met plant manager Christoph Budde who lauded Alu D+T Challenge winner Leon for his curious mindset and creative skills: “We will be pleased to have smart young ones like you here, as future engineers.”
The following plant tour first led to finishing production of material for offset printing plates. Leon learned that every third newspaper worldwide is using such material from Grevenbroich. He also saw rolling of ultra-thin foil which keeps juice or h-milk fresh for months in compound carton packages; ultimately, final installation work for the world´s most modern line to produce aluminium car body strip, in a 200m long, 26m high production hall, due to start production in October 2016.
Alupro´s Marketing Communications Manager Diana Caldwell said: “The competition gives children aged 11-14 the opportunity to learn about aluminium by designing a building, a vehicle or a packaging solution. In doing so they learn about the invaluable contribution this versatile metal makes to our modern life."
Published: July 14, 2016