Table of Contents
Aluminum Forging Industry Overview
China’s aluminum alloy forging industry has been booming in the past few years. As machining gets more demanding from the aviation, automotive, and high-speed railroads, which need high performance materials, aluminum alloy forgings have become the most common choice due to their light weight, strength, and corrosion resistance. The Chinese aluminum alloy forging industry offers not only the domestic market, but also it has been actively developing its presence in the international market with close cooperative links in the aerospace and motor vehicle industries’ global industries.
Technology Introduction
Technologies of aluminum alloy forging can be divided into two parts, it is open-die forgings as well as closed-die forging. Open-die forging process is commonly chosen for larger volume products with simple shapes and less complex specifications, the process allows cost effective and efficient production. Closed-dye forge is useful in making complex shaped parts which has high accuracy. While the material is shown to be costly, the superior mechanical properties and surface quality are achieved as a result. In the current scenario, high-end forging methods such as precision and isostatic pressing are coming up and are widely used to meet the stringent application requirements.
Product Application Examples
Aluminum alloy forgings perform from many sectors because of their light weight and high strength that increase performance and safety. This is a major plus from these forged components. Currently, in the aerospace sector, a Chinese company successfully supplies forged aluminum alloy components for the international passenger aircraft that can withstand any extreme environments and provide better fatigue and corrosion resistance capabilities. The auto industry, moving at the pace of increased efficiency and light vehicles, finds the rollers of aluminum alloy in advanced race car wheels as well as structural parts of electric vehicles, resulting in the lower weight and better acceleration, handling and safety. Similarly to the existing energy sector, exceptional energy production is possible in the new energy sector using aluminum alloy forgings in wind turbines and photovoltaic panels’ components, such as turbine blades and photovoltaic panel frames which enhance efficiency and durability as the result, improving sustainability in the process of technological advancement.
Industry Challenges and Opportunities
Right now, the major issues of aluminum alloy forging industry are price volatility of raw materials, the environmental protection standards that are becoming stricter and the international trade that is very unstable. Nonetheless, the wave of global switch towards the energy saving and emission reduction has led to the sustained growth of demand for lightweight, high-strength materials used in new energy vehicles and renewable energy equipment, which create new market opportunities for the aluminum alloy forging sector.
Future Trends Prediction of Aluminum Forging Industry
The forging industry of aluminium alloy is assumed to belong to the technological purist and the quality leader, both within the internal and external markets. Innovative technologies will be applied, for instance, digitalization and automated production on the basis of intelligent manufacturing, which will boost the efficiency of production and the quality of products. While, the enterprises inside the industry would possibly the competitive capacity in international market elevate through the collaboration and technological exchange which is beneficial to them. In addition, the requirements for aluminum alloy forgings are projected to run in concomitance with the fast technological advancement of new energy and aerospace sectors, which is likely to bring in more progress of the industry.
China’s Top 20 Aluminum Forging Manufacturers
The following lists the top ten aluminum alloy forging enterprises in China, in no particular order. These companies possess significant technological advantages and market influence within the field of aluminum alloy forging, covering the entire industrial chain from raw material procurement, product design, forging production, to post-production processing and testing. They serve not only the domestic market but also export products abroad, providing key aluminum alloy forging components and solutions for multiple critical industries worldwide, including automotive, aerospace, high-speed rail, and military sectors.
CHINALCO SOUTHWEST ALUMINUM(GROUP) CO., LTD.
CHINALCO SOUTHWEST ALUMINUM (GROUP) CO., LTD., located in Chongqing and established in 1965, is now part of the China Aluminum Group’s high-end manufacturing sector. The company specializes in the production of high-end, large-scale, new varieties, and high-quality aluminum and aluminum alloy materials. It possesses advanced processing technology and equipment, including a 30,000-ton die forging hydraulic press, and covers hot and cold continuous rolling production lines, a 4300mm thick plate rolling mill, and a 12000-ton stretcher among its main facilities. Its main products include aluminum and aluminum alloy plates, strips, foils, tubes, rods, profiles, and forgings, serving sectors such as aerospace, transportation, electronic information, packaging printing, and architectural decoration. Southwest Aluminum holds a leading position in the field of technology research and development within China, providing key materials for several major national projects including the “Long March” series rockets, “Tiangong” space laboratories, and “Shenzhou” spacecraft series, and has developed a large number of high-quality new aluminum alloy materials.
QUANSHUN ALUMINUM FORGING
Kunshan Quanshun Aluminum Forging Co., Ltd., established in 2000, has developed into a comprehensive enterprise specializing in aluminum extrusion, aluminum alloy processing, and the development of automotive aluminum alloy components. It owns three subsidiary companies: Kunshan Quanshun Aluminum Industry, Kunshan Quanshun Aluminum Forging, and Kunshan Quanshun Automotive Aluminum Alloy Components Co., Ltd., with an annual output value of 200 million yuan.
The company has strong technical capabilities and a high-quality team capable of providing high-quality aluminum alloy components with various processing techniques, widely used in industries such as automotive, motorcycle, electric power, high-speed rail, military, and textile machinery. It has a complete quality assurance system and advanced production processing equipment, certified by the ISO9001:2000 quality system.
The company has established long-term stable cooperative relationships with domestic large and medium-sized enterprises such as Giant, Orbea, Luoshigroup, Ningbo Top Group, Hotan Industry, Zero Motorcycles, Ensto, and others. Its international market is rapidly expanding, with products selling well in Europe, America, and Southeast Asia.
TIANNAN ALUMINUM
Jiangsu Tiannan Aluminum Material Forging Co., Ltd., located in Rugao City, Jiangsu Province, China, was established in 2014. Specializing in aluminum and aluminum alloy forging, the company primarily manufactures automotive parts, firefighting equipment, machine tools, flanges, electrical products, and aluminum products for the railway industry.
To expand and adapt to global market demands, the company has extensively upgraded its aluminum production technology. It has invested millions of yuan to introduce advanced precision processing lines from both domestic and international sources, thereby fully entering the international market. Utilizing advanced process flows and inspection methods, along with computer-aided design software such as UG, PRE, CAD, and CAXA, the company has standardized, systematized, and modernized its technological capabilities. While emphasizing the development of aluminum forging technology, the company places a greater emphasis on quality management, having obtained the IATF16949-2016 automotive system certification in 2018.
Adhering to the quality policy of “quality first, customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, and excellence,” the company continuously enhances its technical proficiency through advanced process flows and inspection methods to ensure compliance with international standards.
Jiangsu Chunming Aluminum Forging Hub Co., Ltd
Jiangsu Chunming Aluminum Forging Hub Co., Ltd is situated in the Economic Development Zone of Funing, Jiangsu Province, China, with a total investment of 150 million RMB. Their primary product is the 6061 forged aluminum alloy wheel hub. Employing a distinctive production process, the company produces top-quality forged wheel hubs that cater to both domestic and international markets. Their product lineup encompasses various specifications of car wheel hub forgings, renowned for their lightweight nature, exceptional quality, appealing design, and competitive pricing. These products enjoy popularity in key markets such as the United States, Japan, Europe, and Southeast Asia, as well as domestically. Furthermore, the company manufactures lightweight two-piece and three-piece aluminum wheel hubs, which have garnered significant acclaim in the European and American markets.
JIADE FORGING
Taizhou Jiade Forging Co., Ltd., established in June 1995, is located in Yuhuan City, Zhejiang Province, and specializes in the research, development, production, and precision machining of aluminum parts and forgings. The company’s main products include automotive accessories, military products, and railway aluminum products, such as aluminum swing arms, pistols, and train wheel hubs, respectively. Jiade adheres to the philosophy of “people-oriented, excellence pursuit” and the quality policy of “quality first,” becoming a renowned enterprise in China’s aluminum manufacturing industry. To adapt to the global market, Jiade has strengthened its technological upgrades, invested millions in advanced processing equipment and management systems, adopted high-end computer-aided design, and promoted the comprehensive implementation of the ISO/TS16949 quality system, continuously improving product and service quality.
Zhongxiang Aluminum Co., Ltd.
Liaoning Zhongxiang Aluminum Co., Ltd., located in the Liaoyang Economic Development Zone in Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province, was established in 2012, covering an area of over 300,000 square meters with a total construction area of 160,000 square meters. As a national enterprise dedicated to becoming a supplier of lightweight component systems for the automotive industry, it has focused on the lightweight automotive market since its inception, emphasizing customer value and integrating domestic and foreign technologies. It has evolved into a national high-tech enterprise encompassing design, R&D, manufacturing, quality control, sales, and service. The company specializes in “Zhongxiang” brand aluminum alloy wheels and flange axles, widely used in medium and high-end buses, trucks, and specialized vehicles in defense and firefighting sectors.
The company adopts advanced manufacturing concepts of automation, intelligence, and standardization, investing in international advanced production equipment from Germany, Japan, and South Korea, such as rapid melting furnaces, automatic forging machines, automatic heat treatment lines, CNC lathes, machining centers, robotic systems, and automatic surface treatment lines, producing energy-efficient and high-quality aluminum alloy wheels and flanges.
Shenyang West Aluminum Machinery
Shenyang Zhongji Xilu Machinery Forging Co., Ltd. is a private enterprise that integrates the sales of aluminum alloy raw materials, precision machining of aluminum alloy parts, and welding of aluminum alloy tank components. It provides component support for ultra-high voltage power transmission and transformation, and military enterprises. The products are widely used in the power transmission and transformation industry, aerospace, aviation, and other fields. The company is located at No. 69 Shenhu Road, Yuhong District, Shenyang City (within the second phase of China Machine Tool City), covering a construction area of 12,265 square meters. The company includes a machining factory and a shell factory, and has successively passed the ISO9001 quality system certification, GJB9001C national military standard system certification, high-tech enterprise certification, and military product manufacturing security qualification audit; it has applied for and obtained many patent certificates.
YUJIANG DIE CASTING
Chongqing Yujiang Die Casting Co., Ltd. was established in 1991 and has deeply cultivated the field of precision aluminum alloy die casting. It has developed into a comprehensive enterprise integrating independent research and development, design, mold manufacturing, die casting production, machining, and assembly. The company’s business spans multiple countries and regions across Asia, Europe, and North America, serving numerous well-known global automobile brands and new energy vehicle brands. It has established long-term stable cooperative relationships with many large multinational automotive component suppliers.
QUANLV
Quanlv – High-Precision Industrial Aluminum Material Service Provider. Specializing in the production and manufacturing of aerospace and military aluminum alloys, large aluminum mold forgings, free aluminum forgings, reverse extruded forged tubes, ultra-thick forged aluminum plates, large aluminum forging rings, aerospace model forgings of special shapes, and new materials with special composition and ultra-high strength. Materials supplied include 1xxx to 7xxx series aluminum alloys, rust-proof aluminum, and super-hard aluminum.
The raw materials are 100% made from domestically produced Aoo aluminum ingots cast and analyzed through the American-imported Buehler FSQ vacuum spectrometer and the German Spectro spectrometer. These instruments have twenty spectral channels and can analyze the composition of ingots within seconds, ensuring the quality meets national standards. The company possesses a complete set of production equipment for aluminum alloy melting, extrusion, and heat treatment, using ingot gradient heating, extrusion machine functionality enhancement, and other methods to achieve isothermal and constant-speed extrusion, ensuring material structural consistency. At the same time, the company employs rapid cooling technology at the extrusion material exit…
ZHENGXING GROU
Zhengxing Wheel Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Zhengxing Group”), established in June 2003, specializes in the research, development, production, and sales of various types of automobile wheels. With an annual production capacity of 15 million sets of wheels, the company’s comprehensive strength ranks at the top of China’s wheel industry.
Zhengxing Group has six production bases specializing in wheel manufacturing located in Zhangzhou (headquarters) in Fujian, Langfang in Hebei, Chengdu in Sichuan, Hefei in Anhui, Benxi in Liaoning, and Hua’an in Fujian. The product range primarily includes steel wheels for various vehicle types, encompassing over 430 series. The marketing network covers all 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the country, with more than 8,000 sales outlets. Moreover, the products are exported to over 30 countries and regions including Japan, South Korea, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, supplying more than 90 domestic and international large and medium-sized automobile factories. 
CHANGLI FORGING
Changli Forging Co., Ltd., established in 2009, occupies an area of 250 acres. It currently has 14 production lines ranging from 400T to 4000T, equipped with domestic advanced forging equipment such as electric screw presses and hot die forging presses. It is also equipped with CNC machining centers, three-coordinate measuring machines for inspection, mold manufacturing, product heat treatment production lines, and a comprehensive range of physical and chemical testing equipment, totaling more than 450 devices. It is a professional supplier of various types of die forging products for automobiles, high-speed trains, agricultural machinery, and construction machinery, with an annual production of approximately 12 million pieces of various die-forged products.
AVIC SHAANXI HONGYUAN AVIATION FORGING COMPANY LTD.
Aviation Industry Shaanxi Hongyuan Aviation Forging Co., Ltd. (Aviation Industry Hongyuan) was founded in 1965 and is a large specialized forging enterprise of China Aviation Industry Group Company.
The company possesses a group of forging equipment, mold manufacturing, forging, precision casting, heat treatment, machining, and physical and chemical testing facilities that are of an advanced international level, enabling a comprehensive range of R&D and production capabilities. It can produce forgings made of various materials including titanium alloy, high-temperature alloy, stainless steel, structural steel, aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, copper alloy, and emerging intermetallic compounds.
The company has established related quality systems and has also passed international certifications for special processes such as heat treatment (including vacuum furnace heat treatment), magnetic particle (MT), penetrant (PT), ultrasonic (UT), chemical cleaning, measuring, and testing, as well as ISO/TS22163 and EJ/T9001 standard certifications.
With the right to import and export on its own, the company not only provides high-quality forged and cast parts for the domestic market but also has established long-term stable trade cooperation with world-renowned companies such as Boeing, Airbus, UTC, Safran Landing Systems, GE, and Rolls-Royce, with an annual export volume consistently exceeding 20 million USD.
LONRUN
Jiangsu Langrui Precision Forging Co., Ltd. is a professional manufacturer of die forging equipment, precision die forgings, and aluminum alloy die forgings with more than 20 years of experience. The company has mastered key technologies in high-precision large-scale hydraulic die forging equipment independent research and manufacturing, high-precision mold design and development, materials science, and heat treatment. It has a core technical team composed of several PhDs and engineers with over 20 years of experience. With an annual production capacity of 15,000 tons, it owns 60 sets of equipment including 300 to 5000-ton high-precision hydraulic die forging presses, multi-station hydraulic die forging machines, heating furnaces and heat treatment furnaces, mold processing equipment, CNC machining centers, and forging cleaning equipment. The forgings it can produce range in weight from 1kg to 100kg, with precision forging product accuracy controlled within 0.1mm, and the draft angle of die forgings can be close to zero degrees.
RuiShengChang Aluminum
Founded in 2007, Ruishengchang Aluminum Co., Ltd. currently employs over 120 people and operates more than 20 large processing equipments. With an inventory of over 5,000 tons, the company has undergone 9 years of development, strictly implementing the 6S management system. In 2014, it passed the ISO9001 international quality management system certification and the GJB9001B-2009 national military standard quality management system certification. It has established friendly cooperative relationships with well-known domestic and international aluminum production enterprises, including Southwest Aluminum, Dongqing Aluminum, Japan’s Kobe Steel, America’s Kaiser, and Germany’s Aleris.
HUBEI TRI-RING FORGING CO., LTD
Hubei Sanhuan Forging Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of Sanhuan Group Co., Ltd., specializing in the production of steel and non-ferrous metal die forgings through the forging process. The company integrates mold design and manufacturing, forging, heat treatment, machining, and assembly. It boasts 20 intelligent forging lines, represented by the German-imported 8000T and 6300T electric screw presses, 16 heat treatment lines with controllable atmosphere mesh belt furnaces as the mainstay, 27 machining lines primarily composed of German, Japanese, and Korean machining centers, and 19 mold processing lines.
Sanhuan has the capacity to produce 120,000 tons of forgings annually, including 4 million automotive steering knuckles, achieving an annual production and sales scale of 1.5 billion yuan. The company is equipped with product development simulation software such as SolidWorks, NX 3D modeling, Deform, and AFDEX forging forming finite element analysis. Quality inspection equipment is centered around automotive part eddy current hardness and crack detection systems and three-coordinate measuring machines; it has passed quality IATF16949, environmental ISO14001, occupational health and safety ISO45001 management system certifications, intellectual property management system certification, integration of informatization and industrialization management system evaluation, and the German Federal Railway product certification.
SANLIAN FORGING
Wuhu Sanlian Forging Co., Ltd., established in 2004, primarily engages in the research, development, production, and sales of automotive forging parts. The products are mainly used in automotive systems requiring high mechanical and safety performance, such as the power system, transmission system, steering system, and suspension support. Leveraging its forging technology advantages, Sanlian actively explores the application of forged parts in new energy vehicles and participates in the development of forged parts for the platforms of new energy vehicles by well-known automobile manufacturers.
TONGLI
WANDA METAL PRODUCTS
Wanda Metal Products Co., Ltd. is located in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, which is known as the base of China’s modern manufacturing industry and the top among the nation’s top 100 counties. The company specializes in the research and development of aluminum alloys, and the production and sales of forged and stamped parts. It is equipped with advanced production equipment and possesses strong technical capabilities to ensure product quality. The main equipment includes forging machines from Taiwan, punching machines, and CNC machining. The main products include bicycle aluminum alloy forging and automotive stamping parts, among others.
ZERONEAL
Shandong Zhengyu Aluminum Co., Ltd., established in 2012, is a large-scale professional wheel manufacturing enterprise integrating independent research and development, design, manufacturing, sales, and international trade. The company specializes in producing high-strength, lightweight forged aluminum-magnesium alloy wheels for trucks, buses, and SUVs. Covering an area of 320,000 square meters with a total investment of 1.29 billion yuan, the company has introduced the world’s most advanced manufacturing processes and technologies for forged aluminum-magnesium alloy wheels, with an annual production capacity of 1 million aluminum-magnesium alloy wheels.
CHINALCO SHENYANG NON-FERROUS METAL PROCESSING CO., LTD.
China Aluminum Shenyang Nonferrous Metal Processing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Chinalco Shenyang), a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Aluminum Corporation, was originally Shenyang Nonferrous Metal Processing Factory (Factory 814), established in 1949 as China’s first nonferrous metal processing enterprise, and is hailed as the cradle of China’s nonferrous metal processing industry. Covering an area of 600 acres with a total investment of over 2 billion yuan, it has become a comprehensive nonferrous metal processing enterprise with an annual production of more than 10,000 tons of processed materials including titanium, nickel, chromium zirconium copper. The company owns multiple sets of advanced equipment such as electron beam cold hearth furnaces, vacuum self-consuming furnaces, vacuum induction furnaces imported from Germany, the United States, Italy, or domestically matched, an 80MN hydraulic press, 20/60 MN rapid forging machine, and furnace roll mill. The company has titanium casting, nickel (chromium zirconium copper) casting, forging, plate and strip production plants, and a titanium scrap recycling facility, as well as a technology R&D center, offering a complete range of product alloy specifications.
