The Aluminium industry in Europe and the leading universities and reasearch institutes have joined their efforts to create a "Through Process Model" for the developent of the microstructure of Aluminium during its production.

The reaserch is organized as a cluster of three 5^th framework reasearch projects (EEC founded):

• VIRCAST : Casting and homogenisation (heat treatment).

• VIRFAB: Rolling of plates and ekstrusion of profiles and annealing (heat treatment).

• VIRFORM: Forming of profiles og plates.

The Aluminium industry: Alcan, Corus, Elkem, Hydro, Pechiney, Sapa and VAW

Other companies: Calcom and Raytek

Universities and reasearch institutes:

• Association pour la Recherche et le Dévelopement des Méthodes et Processus Industriels ­ ARMINES

• Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

• Foundation Netherlands Institute for Metals Research

• Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble

• Institute for Energy Technology (IFE)

• Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine

• Katolieke Universiteit Leuven

• Insavalor

• Norwegian University of Science and Technology

• Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen

• Swedish Institute for Metals Research, SINTEF

• Universität Stuttgart

• University of Manchester

• University of Sheffield

NTNU activity: 3 PhD students. 3 post-doc's. 3 professors. Students (prosject og diploma), lab.people and others.

Budgets: 17 millions Euro during 4 years (total for the three projects).

Duration: Started 1^th april 2000, ending 31^th march 2004.

A presentation (download pdf) may be found at the homepage of the European Aluminium Association (EAA)