.jpg)
AZoM conducted a series of interviews at the MS&T 07 trade exhibition in Detroit between September 17 and 18. Here's what one of the exhibitors had to say when asked about their latest developments, products and technologies.
Interviewee: Jason Wilson, Technical Marketing Manager from Rolled Alloys
Interviewer: Cameron Chai, AZoM
AZoM:This is Cameron Chai here from azom.com reporting from the MS&T Trade Show in Detroit. And I’ve got with me now Jason Wilson, the Technical Marketing Manager from Rolled Alloys. How are you going today, Jason?
Rolled Alloys: Very good.
AZoM: How’s the trade show going for you so far?
Rolled Alloys: Very good for us. It’s actually one of the largest shows that we exhibit at and it’s really a key area for the sales of our alloys.
AZoM: Are you getting lots of interest from the passers-by and the people who are coming through to your stand?
Rolled Alloys: Yeah, we get a fair amount of interest, but you know, it’s an industry that we’ve been involved with for over 50 years now with our company and it’s a show where we have a very large reception and they have a lot of the exhibitors here that buy our products come too. So it’s a big entertainment type thing for us, yeah.
AZoM: So you’d be a bit disappointed if people didn’t already know who you are?
Rolled Alloys: Yeah, we’d be disappointed if they didn’t already know who Rolled Alloys was ‘cause, you know, RA-330 is kind of an industry standard around here.
AZoM: So just in case there are any of those minority who don’t know who you are, just tell us a little bit about what you do or the materials that you make.
Rolled Alloys: Alright. Well we’re a specialty alloy supplier. We get into stainless steels, heat resistant alloys which will be [unclear] based. And then we also get into allows that go into gas turbine engines, titanium, cobalt based alloys as well.
AZoM: So lots of high temperature type materials?
Rolled Alloys: Yeah, lots of high temperature, lots of materials that would also be suitable for wet corrosion type applications.
AZoM: So things that have to undergo more, or are more susceptible to … have to perform in more trying environments.
Rolled Alloys: Yeah, I would say anywhere where, say, you know, we do some in the regular stainless steel, but anywhere those don’t work, we’ve got something that’s going to be able to give you more performance, you know, be able to go hotter or be able to take more severe corrosive conditions.
AZoM: And so what sort of markets do you typically sell into? What are your main market areas?
Rolled Alloys: Okay. Well here at heat treat show, you know, that’s a big area for a high temperature alloy which would be our nickel, chrome, nickel-chrome-iron type materials, like the RA-330. Then we also sell into the corrosion markets, so that would be the chemical, petrochemical market, oil and gas. We sell things like our AL-6XN or our duplex stainless steels. And then the aerospace we sell a lot of things and it would be like your hastalloy X type materials, you know, the higher nickel grades, higher cobalt-based grades for the exhaust portion of the gas turbine engines.
AZoM: And so before we started the interview, you talked about duplex alloys. They were something or other that was of a material that was starting to gain a lot of traction?
Rolled Alloys: Yeah, we’ve recently … we’ve been doing the 2205 which is a standard duplex stainless steel for a number of years now. The duplex stainless steel are lower in nickel than the standard 300 series and they’ve become very, very popular now with what nickel has been doing as far as going up tremendously in price. Most of the duplex stainless steels are roughly about 5% nickel or less. So the surcharge on those is very low. So for a lot of chemical applications, a lot of standard just stainless applications, a lot of people are taking a serious look at the duplexes and we now stock four different types of duplex grades starting from a lean duplex all the way up to the super duplex materials.
AZoM: Very good. So for anybody out there who’s after some stainless steel, some titanium alloys, things like that, you guys are the place to come?
Rolled Alloys: We’re the place to come and we’re opening up places all world wide. So we just opened a shop in China in Suzhou which is a stocking facility. That’s something new for us and we’re looking to expand further in Asia and Europe as well as here in North America.
AZoM: And so whereabouts are your production bases?
Rolled Alloys: Our main office is in Temperance, Michigan, which is where I’m based out of. But we have several processing facilities in the United States. We’ve got sales offices in Canada. We’ve got two processing locations, I’m sorry, actually three now in Europe, with one in China and we soon may be opening an additional one in Asia.
AZoM: Sounds like things are moving ahead quite nicely for you.
Rolled Alloys: Yes, yes. Lots of things happening, that’s for sure.
AZoM: Very good. Well have to have another chat in the near future when you’ve got more developments.
Rolled Alloys: Okay, well thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate your time.
AZoM: No worries. Thanks very much, Jason.
