Secat has technical and marketing capabilities to serve various aluminum product sectors including: automotive, marine, aerospace, packaging, building & construction, electrical, and recycling. http://www.secat.net/

1. SECAT
PROVIDING ALUMINUM ANSWERS
The scientists and engineers at Secat provide in-depth analysis
using state-of-the-art metallurgical tools. Their advanced
education combined with industrial experience provides a unique
and valuable resource for aluminum companies. Secat is housed
in a specially designed 10,000-square-foot research facility in
Lexington, Kentucky, USA.
Secat has a wide variety of metallurgical R&D equipment,
including SEM with EDS and EBSD, surface roughness tester,
mechanical testing equipment for plate, sheet and foil, XRD for
texture, hardness, earing, formability, and metal cleanliness
(Alscan, Prefil, and Leco-Hydrogen). In addition, thermal
treatment facilities with hot and cold rolling pilot capabilities
enable Secat to develop new processes and alloys from casting
to finished product.

2. Plate, Sheet & Foil Technology
Secat offers the following services
 Sheet product selection and development for specific applications:
 Can and Can Lids
 Common Alloys
 Aerospace Applications
 Automotive Applications
 Foils for Packaging and Capacitor Applications

Sheet manufacturing process development and improvement
 Microstructural evaluation and material testing of sheet products,
including texture, fatigue, etc.
 Formability evaluation and forming process modeling, including forming
limit diagrams

3. Billet/Extrusion Technology
 Extruded product selection and development for specific
applications
 Extrusion process development
 Microstructural evaluation and material testing of extruded
products, including texture, failure analysis, etc.
 Pilot scale extrusion capabilities
 Extrusion billet casthouse improvement and quality
assessment:
 Evaluation of Billet Microstructure
 Metal Quality
 Energy Audits

4. Casting Technology
 Molten metal quality assessment and improvement, including Prefil
and Alscan
 Casthouse safety assessment
 DC ingot casting modeling using ProCast
 Ingot microstructural evaluation
 Secat visited a customer facility with our mobile laboratory to help
them identify existing inclusion and gas levels in metal using the
Prefil Footprinter® and Alscan®, and help to determine how those
levels correlate with the rejections received from field.

5. Materials Testing & Failure Analysis
 Microstructural evaluation, including optical, SEM, TEM, etc.
 Material testing and evaluation
 Failure analysis
 Metal quality assessment
 Formability evaluation and forming process modeling,
including forming limit diagrams
 An aluminum producer needed assistance in determining the
cause of fractures that occurred during fatigue testing

6. Product Applications
 Market surveys prior to introduction of new products Substitution of
aluminum for other metals Finite Element Analysis (FEA) studies
 Alloy selection
 Manufacturing mode such as casting, extrusion, fabrication, etc.
 New alloy development Evaluation of new and competing process
technologies Melting technologies
 Molten metal stirring
 Dross removal and fluxing
 Reverse engineering of parts to determine alloy and temper or
production method

7. Marketing & Business Analysis
 Secat offers Marketing and Business Analysis Services to
solve customer problems and/or identify new growth
opportunities. These services are performed by experts to solve
complex business problems and identify business opportunities for
growth and improved profitability.