Professional Class

The Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition is offered in even years only and is open to professional designers, engineers, architects, fabricators and manufacturers.

The next opportunity for professionals to participate in the Design Competition will be in 2016 to coincide with ET '16 in Chicago, Illinois. Watch for the Call for Entries and competition details in 2015!

View the 2014 Professional Design Competition Winners

Show Off Your Talent

Designers, architects, engineers, aluminum extruders, fabricators, and manufacturers are eligible to enter the International Aluminum Extrusion Professional 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.

Professional Class Awards

In addition to a Grand Prize, a First-Place Prize may be awarded for the best design in each of the four Professional categories, including Structural, Engineered Products, Transportation, and Alternative Energy.

Individual designers and companies are eligible to enter the Professional Design Competition. Aluminum extruders and their customers are encouraged to team up to enter their design in the Competition. We want to reward your innovation and ingenuity!

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!

View previous winners

Aluminum Extrusion Design Resources

As you plan your design for the International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition, visit the Design Resources page for some useful tips and links to helpful design and technical information.

Visit the Design Resources page

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.

Structural
Office component systems Exhibit display booths Furniture Architectural facades, windows Bridges & bridge decking Modular building systems Satellite components	Photo courtesy of Classic Exhibits.
Engineered Products
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
Transportation
Auto chassis & space frames, motorcycle frames & components, seat runners, roof rack rails, steering columns, door handles, radiator frames Truck grills, trailer frames, flooring, cross members Rail car frames & components Airplane wings, seat tracks, window frames, handrails, landing gear Space vehicle components Boat hulls, crossbars, support bars, door & hatch cover trim, tracks & rub rails	Photos courtesy of Classic Trailers, Inc. and Aluminum Chambered Boats, Inc.
Alternative Energy
Aluminum’s sustainable characteristics, along with the versatility of the extrusion process, make aluminum extrusions ideal for alternative energy applications, including: Photovoltaic and Concentrated Solar Power Building-integrated photovoltaic modules Wind power Hydro-electric power Geothermal energy systems Any part or component designed for use in an alternative energy system will fit into this category.	Photo courtesy of Acciona

 

*The competition is not limited to the examples listed; these are just a few of the possible applications for aluminum profiles. Designs must be original and make use of at least one extruded aluminum component. Multiple entries may be entered. If any category yields no entries deemed by the judges to adequately address the competition’s criteria, a prize will not be awarded in that category.