Walk into any commercial kitchen and you’ll find aluminum circles at work — stamped into pots, spun into wok bases, pressed into frying pan blanks. Visit a lighting factory and the same disc shape shows up as reflector housings. Step into a cosmetics plant and aluminum circles become the base of cream jar lids. This single product form — a flat, round aluminum blank cut or punched from rolled sheet — serves more industries than most buyers realize, and the specifications matter more than people expect.

This guide covers everything about aluminum circle products: alloy grades, dimensions, mechanical properties, surface finishes, pricing, and the specific applications that drive global demand.

Aluminum Circle Sheet: Understanding the Base Material

Aluminum circle sheet starts as hot-rolled or cold-rolled aluminum coil, which undergoes slitting, then blanking or punching to produce discs in the required diameter. The quality of the source coil directly determines the quality of the finished circle — surface finish, thickness tolerance, and edge quality all trace back to the rolling process.

Two production routes exist for aluminum circle blanks:

Hot-rolled circles — produced from thick cast slab, rolled at elevated temperature. Hot-rolled stock handles larger diameters (above 400mm) and thicker gauges (above 4mm) without introducing residual stress. Surface finish is mill-finish or annealed, and the material suits deep drawing applications where high elongation matters more than surface appearance.

Cold-rolled circles — produced from cold-rolled coil, offering tighter thickness tolerances (±0.02mm versus ±0.05mm for hot-rolled), better surface flatness, and cleaner edges. Cold-rolled circles dominate the cookware and cosmetics sectors where dimensional accuracy and surface quality drive purchasing decisions.

Aluminum Circle Sheet Specifications

Aluminum Circle 1050: The Cookware Industry Standard

The 1050 aluminum circle is the single most widely sourced disc grade globally. Its 99.5% minimum aluminum purity delivers exceptional formability — the kind that lets a stamping press push a flat disc into a pot body in a single hit without cracking the metal at the rim or thinning the base unevenly.

1050 Aluminum Circle — Chemical Composition

1050 Aluminum Circle — Mechanical Properties by Temper

For cookware spinning and deep drawing, the O temper (fully annealed) gives the highest elongation and the lowest work-hardening rate — meaning the material flows into the die cleanly rather than splitting at the draw radius. H14 suits applications that need moderate strength without full annealing, such as reflector discs and lid blanks.

Aluminium Circles for Cooker: Deep Drawing Performance That Matters

The term “aluminium circles for cooker” covers the full range of disc blanks used in pressure cooker bodies, stockpot bases, milk pots, frying pans, and wok blanks. This is the largest volume application for aluminum circle worldwide, and the technical requirements are specific.

Cookware manufacturers run high-speed hydraulic presses at 40–80 strokes per minute. A circle blank that varies by 0.05mm in thickness across its face causes inconsistent wall thickness in the drawn body. A blank with surface inclusions causes pinholes in the finished pot. A blank that hasn’t been fully annealed earring — an uneven rim height after drawing that requires trimming.

Cookware Circle Specifications

Common Cookware Blank Sizes by Product

Countries running the highest volumes of cookware-grade aluminum circles include China, India, Turkey, South Korea, Vietnam, and Indonesia. These markets combine domestic cookware production with export manufacturing for European, North American, and Middle Eastern retail chains.

Aluminium Disc: Industrial and Non-Cookware Applications

Beyond cookware, the aluminium disc format serves a wide range of industrial and consumer product applications. The term “disc” often signals a thicker, more structurally demanding blank compared to the thin cookware circle, though the two words describe the same product form.

Traffic and Road Signs Aluminum disc blanks in 3003-H14 or 5052-H32, 2.0mm–3.0mm thick, cut to diameters from 300mm to 900mm. Sign manufacturers punch mounting holes, apply reflective vinyl, and install the finished sign on posts. The 5052 alloy handles coastal marine environments without corrosion treatment.

Lighting Reflectors 1050 and 1060 annealed circles, 0.5mm–1.5mm thick, spun into parabolic reflector shapes for street lights, stadium lights, and industrial high-bay fixtures. Bright-finish circles (surface reflectivity >80%) reduce the need for secondary polishing.

Cosmetics Lids and Closures Thin 1050 or 1100 circles, 0.3mm–0.8mm, stamped into round lids for cream jars, powder compacts, and perfume bottle caps. Surface finish is critical here — the blank needs a consistent mill finish or bright annealed surface for downstream lacquering or embossing.

Electrical Components 3003 and 1060 circles used as heat spreader discs in LED modules, transformer cores, and capacitor end caps. Thermal conductivity of 1050 aluminum reaches 222 W/(m·K) — competitive with copper for weight-sensitive applications.

Spinning Blanks for Hollow-ware 1050-O and 3003-O circles spun into bowls, lampshades, decorative vessels, and HVAC end caps. Spinning requires the same high elongation as deep drawing — O temper and clean surface finish are non-negotiable.

Aluminum Round Sheet: Sizing Standards and Custom Cutting

Aluminum round sheet refers to the same disc product described from the perspective of the sheet metal supply chain. Distributors stock standard diameters and sell in small quantities to fabricators, artists, and hobbyists. Mills produce custom diameters to order for production buyers.

Standard Stock Diameters

Non-standard diameters — anything from 85mm to 1,500mm — go through custom die punching or laser/waterjet cutting. Laser-cut circles carry a higher per-piece cost but deliver ±0.1mm diameter accuracy and smooth, burr-free edges suitable for visible surfaces.

For buyers sourcing aluminum circles for crafts — jewelry bases, clock faces, sublimation blanks, and decorative metalwork — 1050-H14 in diameters from 80mm to 200mm, 0.5mm–1.5mm thick, covers the majority of requirements. The H14 temper gives enough stiffness for handling without losing the machinability that craft applications need.

Aluminum Circles for Crafts and Sublimation Blanks

The crafts and personalization market has grown into a meaningful niche for aluminum circle suppliers. Sublimation blanks made from aluminum — typically 1100 or 3003 alloy, 0.45mm–0.8mm thick, coated with a white polyester sublimation coating — allow dye-sublimation printers to transfer full-color photographic images permanently into the metal surface.

Sublimation Aluminum Circle Specifications

Sublimation aluminum blanks ship in large volumes to the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Canada — markets with active personalized gift and custom signage industries. The product also sells into Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, where small-format printing businesses use sublimation as a low-capital entry into custom merchandise.

Aluminium Plate Round: Thicker Disc Products for Structural Use

When the application calls for discs above 6mm thick, the product category shifts from “circle” to aluminium plate round. These are machined blanks used in engineering, tooling, and structural applications where strength matters as much as formability.

Aluminium Plate Round Specifications

6061-T6 plate rounds are the most common spec for machined flanges, pump housings, valve bodies, and aerospace component blanks. 5083-H321 plate rounds serve shipbuilding and cryogenic applications. 7075-T6 targets aerospace and defense tooling where maximum strength-to-weight ratio is the priority.

Global Export Markets for Aluminum Circle

Aluminum circle production concentrates in China, South Korea, India, and Turkey, but demand spreads across every continent. Here’s where the product flows:

Export Destination Summary

India and the broader South Asian market represent the highest volume destination for cookware-grade 1050 and 1060 circles. Nigeria and Ethiopia have emerged as fast-growing markets as domestic cookware manufacturing expands across West and East Africa. European buyers focus more on industrial-grade discs in 3003, 5052, and 6061 for engineering applications.

Aluminum Circle Pricing and Minimum Order

Aluminum circle price ties to the LME aluminum benchmark plus a stamping or punching conversion premium. That premium reflects the diameter, thickness, alloy, surface finish, and edge treatment of the specific blank.

Indicative Pricing (FOB China, USD/ton)

Minimum order quantity for standard cookware circles runs 3–5 MT. Custom diameters and non-standard alloys require 5 MT minimum. Sample orders (50–200 pieces) are available for production qualification.

Lead time for standard stock diameters runs 10–20 days. Custom punching or laser-cut circles take 20–35 days. Mill test certificates, REACH compliance documentation, and fumigation certificates (ISPM-15) ship with every export order.