Ingot Milling Machine, Aluminum Duffel (Belgium)

At its Duffel site, Belgian Aluminum Duffel boosts efficiency and sustainability with a new ingot milling machine from SMS group. Designed for maximum process reliability and availability, it ensures top-quality aluminum rolling products with minimal waste and environmental impact.

Aluminum Duffel in Belgium has installed a new ingot milling machine from SMS group at its Duffel site, enabling efficient and sustainable production of aluminum rolling products. The machine, a key start point in the rolling process, delivers flat, defect-free ingots, essential for high-quality output. 

A highlight is the flexible clamping system, which handles ingots with varying geometries, ensuring tolerance-compliant milling and minimizing downtime. The milling head achieves up to 44  mm cutting depth in a single pass, increasing throughput while reducing energy consumption. The 2,700  mm diameter milling head features over 20 indexable inserts, allowing precise material removal. 3D laser measurement captures ingot surface heights and depths with high accuracy, optimizing milling depth, reducing scrap, and supporting quality control. Integrated with the MES system, milling chips are sorted automatically, improving material efficiency. 

The machine’s intelligent drives, operating with a total installed power of approximately 3,000  kVA via frequency converters, enable energy recovery and flexible speed control. Preventive and condition-based maintenance, together with a spare-parts package, reduces tool-change downtime from over 30 minutes to under 10 minutes, maximizing availability. Noise levels are reduced below 80 dB(A) through an enclosed milling area, while dust and chip extraction ensure environmental compliance and a safe workspace. 

With SMS’s advanced engineering and lifecycle support, Aluminum Duffel achieves high reliability, energy efficiency, and precision, producing top-quality aluminum rolling products sustainably.