This weeks essential question is, What makes aluminum so special?
What’s so special about it? Aluminum is strong, lightweight, durable, flexible, extremely versatile, impermeable, corrosion resistant, an excellent conductor of electricity, non magnetic, non combustible, an abundant element in the earth’s crust and infinitely recyclable.
The tensile strength of pure aluminum is limited. But mix it with other elements and aluminum becomes very strong. When cold-rolled, an aluminum alloy becomes even stronger, sometimes doubling in strength. Some alloys also strengthen and harden by heat treatments, which increase their tensile strengths dramatically.
Aluminum is one of the most versatile and abundant raw materials found in the earth’s crust. An important advantage of aluminum is its sustainability and the fact that it can be recycled repeatedly, quickly, and cost-efficiently -- without any material decline in performance or quality. The recycling of aluminum delivers energy and capital investment savings relative to both the cost of producing primary aluminum and many other competing materials.
