When you choose aluminium from Hydro, it's strong, light, durable and climate efficient, making you part of a smarter and more sustainable future. Our climate strategy is to cut our CO2 emissions 30% by 2030. Our aluminium can help you meet your goals, too.
Energy
Hydro has been at the forefront of the energy transition since 1905, transforming industries and societies with renewable energy. Today, we are pioneering the green aluminium transition through renewables and new energy solutions.
Sustainability
We want to contribute to the just and green transition through responsible production, creating circular solutions and delivering net-zero aluminium by 2050 or earlier.
Careers
At Hydro, we put our people at the center of everything we do. By supporting our employees’ growth professionally and personally, we are fostering a community of colleagues who are united in the shared purpose of solving our industries’ most pressing challenges.
Investors
With more than a century of industrial experience, we are enabling the green transition through innovation, technological advances, and a strong commercial mindset.
Media
Working on a story about aluminium? Press releases, photos, stories, facts and figures – you will find everything you need here.
About Hydro
Hydro is a leading aluminium and renewable energy company that builds businesses and partnerships for a more sustainable future. We have 32,000 employees in more than 140 locations and 42 countries.
7003 is another high-strength aluminium alloy, alloyed primarily with zinc and magnesium with a small addition of zirconium. It is typically used in extruded profiles where mechanical performance is the deciding factor, particularly in automotive structural work and crash management systems. Strength, reasonable extrudability and good weldability make it a great option when the profile actually needs to be fabricated rather than just machined.
7003 excels when the combination of strength and workability is needed. The alloy's yield strength sits around 33 MPa in T5, which means that it holds up under loads and fatigue in ways that lighter alloys cannot. The addition of zirconium improves grain structure and crack resistance, which matters in applications where the profile needs a long service life in tougher conditions.
The most practical advantage of 7003 is its extrudability. 7003 handles complex geometries well enough to make it a real option for structural extrusions rather than just bar and plate. Weldability is also better than other alloys in the 7xxx-series, which opens up the possibilites for fabricated assemblies.
Typical applications
Automotive body
7003's combination of high strength and reasonable extrudability makes it a practical choice for structural automotive profiles where weight and performance both matter.
Examples: body frame profiles, chassis components, suspension brackets, battery tray structures for EVs
Crash management and impact structures
High strength and good energy absorption performance suit 7003 to profiles that need to perform predictably under load.
Most commonly used in automotive structural components, crash management systems, sporting equipment and high-load engineering profiles where high strength is important and the application can accommodate the alloy's specific characteristics around welding and corrosion behaviour.
Both are high-strength 7xxx-series alloys with similar zinc-magnesium chemistry, and they overlap in some structural applications. 7003 is more commonly specified for automotive and crash-relevant work, partly because of its zirconium addition and the way it responds to typical automotive process cycles. 7108 has a stronger track record in general structural extrusions for building, transport and infrastructure.
Yes, and more reliably than many 7xxx-series alloys. It is one of the reasons 7003 sees use in fabricated automotive and structural assemblies. As with all 7xxx-series alloys, joint design and stress management need to account for stress corrosion behaviour.
Like other 7xxx-series alloys, 7003 can be susceptible to stress corrosion cracking in highly stressed zones, particularly under certain environmental conditions. This is something to factor into design and temper choice rather than a reason to avoid the alloy, and most applications can be designed around it.
