Blog
by Markku Ainali
Managing Director of CuproBraze Alliance
5th of Jan., 2009
When developing a new manufacturing technology, there are numerous matters to take into consideration. The CuproBraze development started from materials. Earlier, there were no suitable alloys for the fins and tubes which could withstand the brazing temperature without softening. A copper alloy for fins had to be developed, as well another one for tubes. For headers, side supports and tanks there existed, luckily, an old which that was heat resistant and had excellent formability. That alloy was originally developed for lamp sockets and found a new use in CuproBraze technology. Then you had to develop a new brazing alloy as the earlier ones were melting at unnecessarily high temperatures. And then the brazing paste and foil technologies, so that the brazing alloy would be practical and convenient to apply on the surfaces of the parts. After that the actual brazing process, including furnace cycle, had to be developed. Finally, up scaling of the process. New types of machines were needed for paste application, dedicated for this process. When everything was ready, you had to be able to demonstrate the process and make prototype heat exchangers and test them thermally, mechanically and against corrosion in laboratory tests, and in relevant outdoor environments. In addition, you had to be able to hand out prototypes to interested heat exchanger manufacturers for their own and their customers' evaluation. Even though many of the developments were made parallelledly, it all took a lot of time and other resources, and you had to work in a serious and structurized manner. To make the development public, ICA arranged technical seminars around the world and speeches and papers were given also at international conferences. All that was done. A lot of the work has been summarized in the CuproBraze Brazing Handbook and in SAE-papers. All in all, many radiator manufacturers perceived the technology very interesting, even fascinating, as it was the major new development in the automotive heat exchanger manufacturing since 30 years back.
2nd of Jan., 2009
At first I would like to wish you all A Happy New Year 2009! Let's hope that we gradually start seeing some positive signs in the world economy. I recently read a blog by Glenn Brodis of Automotive World. He wrote: "Firms that spend wisely in the depths of recessions are always the ones that tend to power out of them as markets eventually turn back up". The global automotive industry is now in a position where it must re-evaluate all issues related to economy, technology and environment. This situation should be favorable for new technologies, including CuproBraze.
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23rd of Dec., 2008
Year 2008 is close to the end. It makes me to think what has been achieved and what do we have ahead. The intensive period has been the second half of the year. Copper price came down and triggered increasing interest in CuproBraze. That can be seen for instance in the amount of articles written in different technical magazines (see News-CuproBraze in News). Today the main argument for using CuproBraze is durability. The interesting products for the future are charge air coolers for elevated temperatures and air conditioning units with high strength, corrosion resistance and antimicrobial surfaces. For both applications copper is a natural choice.
Season's Greetings to all of you!
19th of Dec., 2008
The Board of Alliance had an interesting meeting this week, where the marketing efforts for 2009 were planned. Also, an interesting event both for members and non-members will be arranged on April 22, 2009. There will be an open-door day at Seco/Warwick in Poland. The program includes short presentations of the member companies, tour to Seco/Warwick's brazing furnace manufacturing plant and possibility to face-to-face meetings with member companies. A good opportunity to get to know CuproBraze Alliance and what it and the member companies can offer to you. More information will be put to the "Upcoming Events" section.
10th of Dec., 2008
This web site will be slightly restructured within the next few days to make it more convenient to the visitors. After that we will start adding more information again. Please feel free to give feedback on the current contents and your wishes for the future. You can find my e-mail address on the Contacts page. Alternatively, you can write your comments at the Discussion Forum.
4th of Dec., 2008
People dealing with web site management, probably receive following kind of messages frequently: "We are a domain name registration organization in Hong Kong, mainly dealing with the domain names in Asian regions. We received a formal application from a company that is applying to register some domain names with the keyword “cuprobraze”. After investigation, we found that it is the same as your company name and trademark, so we inform you of this issue. In order to find out if it could affect you or not, we still have not confirmed the third company yet. And if you think the domains are important and would like to protect them by registering ahead, please contact us as soon as possible." -- Our Alliance has registered some major options, but is not willing to register all possible suffixes, with associated unnecessary initial and annual cost. Therefore, please be sure to continue visiting the genuine site of CuproBraze Alliance - this site, www.cuprobraze.com!
1st of Dec., 2008
Today CuproBraze is already rather well known among the thermal experts in vehicle and heat exchanger industries. There are probably many reasons for it, such as: ICA has held CuproBraze seminars around the world and is publishing Executive Report on regular basis, CuproBraze Alliance has attended, with booth, big automotive shows, like Tokyo Motorshow, IAA, Agritechnica, BAUMA etc. etc. The new Board of Alliance, elected in June this year, decided to concentrate the marketing efforts in the near future to this web site and smaller, more specialized shows linked with heavy duty heat transfer applications. The first such show to attend with booth is CTI Forum Exhaust Gases, which will be held in Düsseldorf, Germany on January 27-28, 2009. If you visit that seminar, pls utilize the opportunity to see our booth and have to a chat with us!
26th of Nov., 2008.
Today's business is very global. It has both good and bad sides. Global companies or other organizations are working around the clock. The information flow is very fast and you can utilize the time differences if needed. Sometimes your message goes around the world in one day. I work in Europe. It once happened to me, that I gave technical advises to an American customer, and the next day I received additional questions from another customer on the same matter from Asia. They had spoken with each other during our night. CuproBraze Alliance is a global organization with many nationalities and languages among the the members. In spite of cultural and other differences, we support each other and learn from each other. Within a network like this it is often possible to get answers to urgent questions day and night, even if you are with a small company.
23rd of Nov., 2008.
The raw material price of copper has fallen rapidly from the top level of 9000 USD/ton to the current level of 3500 USD/ton. It means that copper can offer competitive solutions, not only technically but more and more even price wise. We have already seen positive reactions on the marketplace. One-shot brazing has recently been implemented in the mass production scale. Developments of new applications, among the companies already in production, have started. Also, new decisions on going for CuproBraze production are prepared. These are encouraging observations in the otherwise "depressing" general business environment of today.
21st of Nov., 2008.
Welcome to the web site of CuproBraze Alliance!
The ambition of the new Board is to improve the web site step by step by updating the existing information and adding new useful information. Also, more pictures will be inserted.
A lot of things are happening in the world right now and it is a challenge to find new business opportunities.
More strict environmental requirements on the vehicles force the manufacturers to find new innovative solutions. CuproBraze has the potential to be one of them. The durability, especially at elevated temperatures, is important for Charge Air Coolers. Smaller size helps when more and more components have to be packed close to the engine. Antimicrobial properties of copper can be useful in air conditioning systems. We hope this web site will help you in detecting your opportunities in the innovative world - with copper!