ENCYCLOPÉDIE DE LA RECHERCHE SUR L’ALUMINIUM AU QUÉBEC 2013 | Page 26

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PRODUCTION D’ALUMINIUM
ALUMINIUM PRODUCTION

Real-time control of the anodes quality
using
CONTRÔLE EN TEMPS RÉEL DE LA QUALITÉ DES acoustic methods
ANODES PAR MÉTHODES ACOUSTIQUES

Contrôle en temps réel de la qualité des anodes
REAL-TIME CONTROL OF THE ANODES QUALITY
par méthodes acoustiques
USING ACOUSTIC METHODS

Moez Ben Boubaker1, Carl Duchesne1, Jayson Tessier2 et Houshang Alamdari3
Département de Génie Chimique, Université Laval, Québec, QC, G1K 7P4, Canada
Canada Primary Metals, Aluminerie de Deschambault, 1 Boulevard des Sources,
Deschambault-Grondines, QC, G0A 1S0, Canada
Département de Génie des mines, de la métallurgie et des matériaux, Université Laval, Québec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada
1

2 Alcoa

3

1 : Introduction

2 : Problem & objectives

 Quality control of the green and baked anodes
•
•
•
•

Impact on reduction cells:



A weekly average of sampling less than 1% of the production
Delays of 4 to 6 weeks before the availability of results
Sampling strategy not representative of the population
Feedback corrective action not possible due to delay and the sampling frequency



Anode degradation

 Manufacturing challenges
• Using multiple sources of raw materials to meet environmental constraints and reduce costs
• Lack of tools for anode manufacturers to adapt to this situation
• Increase in the variability and reduction in the quality

3 : Methodology

Comparison of
methods

Intercept faulty anode
before they deteriorate
process performance and
increase production costs

Fig. 1: Defects

 Develop a rapid and non-destructive method to inspect 100% of anodes produced :
Equipments

Choice of suitable techniques
(Investigate acoustics)

Expertise

Identification of the
most sensitive and
most selective

Test Bench
Processing

Build prediction
proprties models
for classification
strategy

Investigation of
acoustic methods

Electrical resistivity
Carbon consumption
Set cycle
.

 Intercept faulty green anodes before baking (save carbon, baking and energy consumption).
 Intercept faulty baked anodes before set in reduction cells (save carbon and energy consumption).
Development of a system of non-destructive testing
to intercept defective green and baked anodes

Slice # 5

Fig. 2: Schematic of the methodology

Fig. 3: Sliced baked anode scanned using X-ray tomography

S.1 Acquiring ultrasonic and acoustic emission signals through anode material.

Fig. 4: one X-Ray image

Fig. 5: data acquisition

S.2 Preprocess [