FORMABILITY OF RECYCLED ALUMINUM-ALLOY-5017

Innovations in the production of consumer goods are increasingly drive n by the necessity of energy and resource conservation. As one of the consequences, designing with respect to recycleability has become an i mportant issue, this being particularly so for non-durable items. Exem plary for the packaging industry, the beverage can is one of these. On e development in this context is to replace the currently-used combina tion of alloys in the aluminium beverage can by a single alloy, this p aper reporting on alloy 5017, which is intended for this application. The formability of the material-a major criterion for the manufacturab ility of the can-is evaluated by experiment. The parameter of the stud y is the increase in the amount of iron in the alloy, resulting from ( multiple) reclamation. It is concluded that a change in the iron conte nt (within the limits explored) does not lead to a dramatic degenerati on in the performance of the material. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.