Process modelling in continuous aluminium strip heat treatment

Aluminium strip is used as a lightweighting material, mainly in automotive and aircraft manufacturing. In order to give it the necessary strength characteristics it is subjected to precipitation hardening. High cooling rates must be achieved in this context so that, on the one hand, the thermodynamically unstable state of the oversaturated solid solution can be produced. On the other hand, the cooling rate should not be higher than necessary so that strip deformation due to thermal stresses is minimized. This makes it highly important to control the process regime with maximum accuracy. Process modelling is an expedient solution here, given that the product temperature inside the furnace system is difficult and costly to measure and complex dependencies on current process variables exist, especially in the quench section.