PROCESS FOR PRODUCING THICK SHEET FROM DIRECT CHILL CAST COLD ROLLED ALUMINUM ALLOY

摘要

A process for producing thick aluminum/aluminum alloy sheet useful for truck parts and the like includes the steps of feeding molten aluminum/aluminum alloy (10) into a direct casting apparatus (12) to provide an ingot that is subjected to a cooling (15) and optional scalping step (14), followed by hot rolling (18) to provide a sheet having a thickness for from about 3.2 mm to 5.8 mm and is suitable to coil in step (20), and where the sheet is cooled (21) to form 15° C. to 60° C. and cold rolled (22, 24) at from about 120° C. to 160° C. to reduce the sheet to from about 0.9 mm to 1.5 mm and cool (23, 25) it to from 120° C. to 160° C., where heat generated during the cold rolling (22, 24) stabilizes the sheet without additional energy intensive oven furnace anealing. The reduced sheet can then be trimmed (28) and coated (30) as with paint or the like.