Professional Class

Winning Entries - 2010 winning entries coming soon!

from previous year's

Show Off Your Talent

The ET Foundation—the educational and scientific organization devoted to promoting and advancing aluminum extrusion processes and technologies—is proud to invite designers, architects, engineers, aluminum extruders, fabricators, and manufacturers to enter the International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition.

Innovation is a key objective of the competition, which encourages designers to hone their skills and develop new techniques and uses for aluminum extrusions. Individuals or companies are eligible to enter the professional competition.

Endless possibilities…
For designers and engineers the possibilities are endless when designing with aluminum extrusions. Aluminum profiles can provide the solution to many design challenges. With aluminum extrusions you don’t have to compromise your design to accommodate standard shapes—you can design exactly the shape you need and let the production process accommodate itself to your specific design.

Aluminum profiles have many advantages, including

• Favorable strength-to-weight ratios
• Flexibility of numerous alloys
• Ability to design to close tolerances, and
• Unsurpassed advantages of the extrusion process

…making aluminum extrusion the material and process of choice.

Careful design is the way to gain maximum benefit from the many variable characteristics of aluminum alloys and from the flexibility of the extrusion process. The Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition is a great place to show off your talent and innovation in design…and it offers the possibility of winning money and recognition for your unique design!

Aluminum Extrusion Technical Resources

As you plan your design for the International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition, here are some resources that will assist you with learning about the features and benefits of extruded aluminum, the process used to create them, as well as examples of other designs using aluminum extrusions:

• See past Design Competition winners
• Visit uspto.gov to peruse the U.S. Patent Office website to research your product's commercial viability, improve on your design, or investigate your idea.

• Designing for Aluminum Extrusion  

  Awards may be presented to any design that best satisfies the judging criteria.

  • Review examples of extruded aluminum applications
• View extruded aluminum design ideas
• View the Aluminum Extrusion Council's Spotlights, which focus on the following areas of aluminum extrusion:
  • Alloys
  • Anodizing
  • Coatings
  • Competitive Materials
  • Design
  • Tolerances
  • Transportation
• View the Aluminum Extrusion Council's Showcase E-Magazines, which cover the following topics:
  • Green Building Design
  • Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
  • Churchill Downs
  • Extruded Ceiling Track System
  • Design Competition
  • Aluminum Chambered Boats
  • Dulles Airport Automated People Mover
  • Ford GT Supercar
  • International Space Station

Cash Prizes

The entry that best meets the judging criteria will be awarded first place in its category. However, if any category yields no entries deemed by the judges to address adequately the competition's criteria, a prize will not be awarded in that category.

First place will be awarded for each of the three categories should a design merit an award.

Grand prize will be awarded to the best entry across all categories and classes.

Cash prizes have been sponsored by Hydro Aluminum North America. In addition to the winning categories above, Hydro also sponsors student scholarships including the Hydro Sustainable Design Award presented to the student whose design best demonstrates its benefit to society and the environment. See student section for details.

Judging Criteria

Winning entries will be those that demonstrate the benefits of aluminum extrusions, whether by inventing a new product or improving an existing one, by achieving the following objectives:

Creativity: innovative design, new application capability, methods to meet a new design challenge
Practicality: ease of fabrication and assembly, cost-effectiveness
Process improvement: customization or improvement of extrusion processes, close tolerances
Market Potential: design marketability and likelihood of market success.

Entry Categories

These are just a few of the possible applications for aluminum profiles.  Submit your own design or prototype—it will be considered.

Office component systems Exhibit display booths Furniture Architectural facades, w indows Bridges & bridge decking Modular building systems Satellite components
	Photo courtesy of Classic Exhibits.

Bicycles, sporting goods, recreational equipment Ladders, scaffolds Lighting, lighting tracks Appliances, other durable household goods Scientific, agricultural, industrial, mining equipment Machine components Electrical & thermal components

Auto chassis & space frames, motorcycle frames & components, seat runners, roog rack rails, steering columns, door handles, radiator frames Truck grills, trailer frames, flooring, cross members Rail car frames & components Airplane wings, seat tracks, window grames, handrails, landing gear Space vehicle components Boat hulls, crossbars, support bars, door & hatch cover trim, tracks & rub rails
	Photo courtesy of Classic Trailers, Inc.	Photo courtesy of Aluminum Chambered Boats, Inc.

Individual designers or companies are eligible to enter the Design Competition. Submit your ideas for how to achieve weight savings, safety improvements, or improved performance through the use of aluminum extrusions! 

Return to top