Thermalex: Aluminum Thermal Transfer Extrusions

What's New:

PAUL J. SCHMITZ, CEO, ThermaSys Corporation
Thermalex welcomes Paul J. Schmitz as the new CEO of its American joint venture parent, ThermaSys Corporation. Schmitz joined the ThermaSys Corporation team in Fall, 2001, and will direct the activities of member companies, Thermal Transfer in Racine, WI, General Thermodynamics in Franklin, WI, Detroit, MI based Great Lake, Inc., ARUP in Dortmund, Germany, and Heat Exchangers, Thermal Components and Tubing Products in Montgomery, AL. In addition to the ThermaSys Corporation family of companies, Schmitz will serve as Chairman of the Thermalex Board of Directors, along with other directors from ThermaSys Corporation and Mitsubishi Aluminum, Thermalex's other joint venture parent.

Schmitz sees great opportunities for ThermaSys Corporation companies and the Thermalex joint venture. He will focus market strategies, strengthen sales and application engineering to grow market penetration and make customer service and responsiveness a hallmark.

Schmitz comes to ThermaSys Corporation from Morton Custom Plastics, a $132M multi-divisional concern, serving highly-engineered agricultural equipment, off-road recreational vehicle, appliance and business computer customers as it's President and COO since 1998.

Prior to Morton, fourteen years of successive divisional leadership positions within Fiberite, Inc. lead to Schmitz's eventual appointment to vice president and general manager of Fiberite's Worldwide Molding Compounds business. Before Fiberite, he served five years at Phillips Engineering Plastics in sales engineering and staff project engineering positions. Schmitz earned his BSME from Kansas State University and is married with two children. The Schmitz family relocated to Montgomery, AL, home of ThermaSys Corporation corporate headquarters in late 2001. All of us at Thermalex are happy to have Paul Schmitz aboard at ThermaSys Corporation, and wish him the very best.

AKIRA INAMURA, Thermalex Executive Vice President Thermalex is excited to welcome and celebrate the return of Akira Inamura to our joint venture company from Mitsubishi Aluminum, effective Fall, 2001 as Executive Vice President. Inamura replaces Hiroki Kontani, who ably served as EVP for Thermalex from 1999 through 2001, until his promotion back to Japan to lead a Mitsubishi Aluminum company there.

Mr. Inamura served as the first Engineering Manager at Thermalex from mid 1986 to May of 1991 and was a key participant in the start-up of the joint venture company. Thermalex has come along way since its foundation was established by the joint venture of Mitsubishi Aluminum of Japan and ThermaSys Corporation (then, Thermal Components). Prior to re-joining Thermalex, Mr. Inamura had been Vice Plant Manager of Mitsubishi Aluminum's Fuji plant in Japan.

Mr. Inamura's world class aluminum extrusion experience, his state-of-the-art processing technology and die expertise is second to none. We welcome Mr. Inamura and look forward to his future leadership in the areas of extrusion technology, die design and die manufacturing. As Thermalex responds to increasingly challenging customer design profiles and ever tightening tolerances, Mr. Inamura's experience and presence at Thermalex will be evident to our customers through extrusion achievements and successive production efficiencies.

Brazeliner® is an exciting, new Thermalex product development with profound cost savings potential for micro tube applications. Thermalex extruded microchannel tubing used in parallel flow brazed aluminum condenser and evaporator coils for HVACR, automotive aftermarket and OEM applications require manifold and finstock cladding to braze the coil together. Now, Thermalex introduces Brazeliner®, with the cladding supplied to the surfaces of the microtube. Finstock fabrication tooling life is extended as typically abrasive, non-clad aluminum finstock base can be used. Coil fabrication, equipment, and tooling costs are reduced with this Thermalex innovative solution.

CO₂ As a Refrigerant in HVACR: The HVACR industry is studying the use of CO₂ as a refrigerant in automotive and HVACR (air conditioner and heat pump) applications. Excitement abounds as CO₂ is a naturally occurring compound in the air we breathe versus chemically fabricated refrigerants used in heat transfer systems today. CO₂ does not have the global warming potential of today's refrigerants. And CO₂ refrigerant in HVACR systems will not require costly and time-consuming recovery and reclaim of fabricated CFC, HCFC and HFC refrigerants presently in use. Making this technology possible is extruded aluminum microchannel tubing, like Thermalex Micro-Flow®, which can handle the higher operating pressures and increased thermal transfer requirements over older, traditional round copper tube-in-fin technologies. Better technology. Better for your product application.