P R O F E S S I O N A L M O T O R S P O R T W O R L D

PR

OF

ES

SIO

NA

L M

OT

OR

SP

OR

T W

OR

LD

– J

AN

UA

RY

20

13

P

ublished by UK

IP M

edia & Events Ltd

T h E M a g a z I n E f o r T h o s E I n T h E b U s I n E s s o f g o I n g M o T o r r a c I n gsErIEs focUs P.6, EngInEs P.8, chassIs P.10, hoTLIsT P.13, bUsInEss nEws P.14, I rEMEMbEr P.72

w w w . P M w - M a g a z I n E . c o M

JANUARY 2013

Single-seatersEntry-level series rivals

for the 2013 season

Historic F1How Williams keeps its classic race cars alive

LubricantsThe future is thinner,

say the experts

Hybrid heroesUlrich Baretzky

Head of engine development, Audi Sport

John LitjensProject leader chassis, Toyota Motorsport

Pascal Couasnon Director, Michelin competition

Interviews

WINNERS aNNouNcEd: Toyota and Audi clean up in the PMW Expo Awards PLuS we look under the skin of the Glickenhaus P4/5 racer

www.pmw-magazine.com | January 2013

It is a common perception that the UK steel industry has gone through some

turmoil over the past decade, and that perception would be correct in many, if not all, areas. Two companies are now pushing ‘Made in the UK’ steel products into the UK market.

Aerocom Metals and Caparo Drawn Products have combined cold-drawing know-how and industry knowledge to keep alive British steel tubes for the treasured aerospace and motorsport industries.

It seems amazing that only 10 years ago, if one were prepared to buy a mill’s minimum order quantity, one could sit and make fi ve or six phone calls, re-telling stories of how Universal Steel tube is cheaper, Corus Cold Drawn Tubes are faster, and you, Mr Supplier, need to beat both of them to win the business. But this all began to change in 2008.

Simon Littleford, a director at Aerocom Metals, remembers, “Back in 2008, we saw a major slump in our customers’ enthusiasm for two of our high-tensile steel tube products – T45 and 4130. In 2005, average pricing for T45 tube was £15 per meter, in 2008 prices were hitting the £25 to £30 per meter mark. The price increases were a result of many mills closing, and a certain degree of what we felt was profi teering. This was driving people away from these products, and toward more commercial grades that were readily importable from Far Eastern mills.”

In niche markets like this, you can only pull an elastic band so far before it snaps, and for this reason Aerocom Metals decided that if this product were to be sustainable, it needed to fi nd new manufacturing routes – and preferably on UK shores.

Coventry-based Aerocom Metals is only a stone’s throw away from West Bromwich-based Caparo Drawn Products, and it was with this company that the task of trying to reinvigorate the high-tensile steel tube market began.

Dean Allen, senior quality engineer at Caparo, says, “When Aerocom approached us about T45, our initial response was ‘no’. All tube grades have a chemical make-up, and we did not have the starting material to initiate the draw process. At the time,

Back in the UK

Faced with stiff competition from overseas, two British companies took steps to secure the supply of homegrown T45 steel for motorsport

WORDS BY PAUL SMITH

M E T A L S 0 5 1

Aerocom Metals has more than 250,000ft of high-tensile tube stocks

January 2013 | www.pmw-magazine.com

it did not make business sense to invest in 20,000kg of raw material, when Aerocom’s projected usage was more like 5,000kg.”

This presented challenge number one: how do you persuade a mill producing tubes since the 1930s, with a current capacity of approximately 20,000 metric tons per annum, to produce such a small volume? There is something special about the UK motorsport industry; it takes pride in the quality of its work, and regards itself as the best of the best. So appealing to the patriotic feelings that already existed toward its motorsport heritage was a start. That said, pound notes also help, so Aerocom decided to invest in the starting stocks on behalf of Caparo, with Caparo in turn investing in the development of these products through its own facility.

Like any new project, Aerocom and Caparo encountered stumbling blocks. First there were reeling marks (a spiral-like mark down the length of the tube); this is a result of the straightening process. Rollers are used to push the lengths from all sides just past their yield strengths, to force out any kinks. When dealing with higher-tensile tube, a higher

throughput pressure is required to push tubes back into line; the more pressure, the more chance of the marking. The resolution has resulted in a fresh set of tooling to ensure that the draw process, where the stresses are put into the tube, produces tubes as straight as possible.

Next there was color. There is an old saying in the aerospace industry: ‘If it looks good, it will fly good’. For this reason, a new tube on the block needed to look and feel just like all those that had preceded it. Initially, the first batches of T45 looked a little darker. This had no effect on the mechanical properties at all, and was just a by-product of oxygen regulation during the tempering process. The resolution was to add a further pickle and oil to the production route to clean it down and enhance the tube.

Finally there was the need to work on the ductility of the tube. Littleford

0 5 2 M E T A L S

Aerocom’s stock range includes aluminum and stainless steel

says, “In the early days, we had a number of calls where material had cracked during the bending process. While there seemed to be a pattern dependent on the type of machine used to bend the tube, the bottom line was that it was very disappointing.

We had invested over £70,000 into getting this project up and running, and the initial response was, ‘We don’t like it’. All tests were carried out to all the standards, and the material was passing with flying colors; we just

couldn’t put our finger on it.” This meant further investigations,

and Caparo had to put some dedicated trial programs in place. Allen confirms, “We really had to play around with the tempering temperatures of this tube to get the perfect mix of mechanical properties. Hold the temper too high, for too long, and you start to anneal the tube, dropping the mechanicals. Hold it too low, and you retain the strength but start to loose the elongation.”

In among the development and investment, the aim of the project was always to get prices back to where they were, and try to stimulate the chassis builders, roll-cage manufacturers, bike-frame, kart-frame, and picture-frame makers to go back to buying British products.

Such an endeavor has to work from the grass roots up, and where workshops would once buy products

such as T45 for their home-build consumption, pricing had forced them out of the market. Aerocom felt that a realistic pricing structure, aimed at around £14 per meter, would bring a resurgence of interest in some of these products – and it certainly did. Phil Boffin of BMS Engineering explains, “Without the likes of Aerocom Metals driving these prices down, designers just wouldn’t spec up these products any more due to the costing implications. We started to see the demand in our own workshop for T45 drop, back in 2009.” Martin Roberts from Harry Hockley Motorsport concurs, “We had to use T45 – it is homologated in our roll cages – but when pricing was hitting its peak, we had no choice but to push prices up with our customers. They, in turn, started to question the feasibility of using out-of-country sources for their frames. This was a major worry.”

Competition in the market is always good for consumers, giving them the opportunity to establish if what they are buying is a good deal. For Aerocom, however, there was an initial downside. Littleford comments, “We had some strange reactions coming out of our competitors in the early days. Some customers told us they had heard our T45 was from the Far East, others told us they had heard it was fake. This hurt; we had put so much effort into trying to get this off the ground, and while we expected a few noses to be put out of joint among our competitors due to our pricing vision, we weren’t expecting to be discredited in this way. We felt that if we had wanted to profiteer from this, we could just go out and charge the £25 per meter. But that is not what this is about; it’s about trying to keep these products alive. We have a loyal customer base, and the majority know what it has taken to get the support of manufactures like Caparo. Would you believe that back in 2008, we were actually doing a PowerPoint presentation to the managing director of Caparo to convince him to take our orders… and we were the customer!”

To date, Aerocom Metals has seen an average 16% year-on-year increase in its T45 sales alone, and now has over 250,000ft of high-tensile tube stocks, along with bar, sheet, and plate. The rich mix of the foresight of British mills such as Caparo, and the determination of Aerocom Metals, has shown how it is possible for homegrown UK businesses to continue and prosper, building on the country’s heritage of motorsport technology. <

“AT THE TIME, IT DID NOT MAKE BUSINESS SENSE TO INVEST IN 20,000KG OF RAW MATERIAL, WHEN AEROCOM’S PROJECTED USAGE WAS MORE LIKE 5,000KG”

Steel stockholder supporting

key areas of the Aerospace &

Motorsport industries

ENQUIRIES 02476 645 551www.aerocommetals.co.uk

CERTIFICATE NO. 10383ISO 9001AS 9120

>> Titanium Alloys

>> Special Steels

>> Nickel Alloys

>> Stainless Steels

>> BS4T45 to BS5T100

>> S515

>> 4130

>> Aerocom 33

AEROCOM-215x275mm Motorsport Ad_Layout 1 20/11/2012 16:40 Page 1