What is Aluminum?

Unless you are a chemist with access to a laboratory-controlled setting, the likelihood of you coming in contact with “pure aluminum” is nearly zero. This is because of high aluminum responsiveness, as the pure aluminum metal’s chemical characteristics are extremely responsive to oxygen, resulting in it being cohered to oxygen atoms directly upon contact. The outcome is the creation of a substance referred to as hydrated alumina.

Hydrated alumina, more referred to as bauxite ore, is mined from the planet’s crust and refined for extracting aluminum. After it is extracted from the ore, pure aluminum is usually much too soft and pliable for commercial uses.

Because of this, pure aluminum is most often mixed with other alloying metals or additives. These typically include magnesium, copper, silicon, manganese, tin, and/or zinc. By producing an aluminum metal alloy, the overall strength of the metal is improved, in addition to many other differing physical characteristics required for application.

Therefore, when you encounter everyday objects in your life like aluminum cans, foil for cooking, or packaging for food, don’t forget you are not actually contacting pure aluminum, but instead, aluminum alloys that are only made up of ninety nine percent aluminum metal.

Types of Aluminum

Unsullied aluminum is exceedingly soft and usually not strong enough for most commercial uses and projects. To remedy this, unsullied aluminum is melted and blended with other additives like iron, copper, silicon, manganese, magnesium, and zinc. Due to alloying with these other additives, aluminum properties like strength workability, density, electrical conductivity and resistance to corrosion are improved.

Throughout the aluminum alloying method, 3 different types of aluminum alloys can be created subject to their characteristics, and which methods are used to treat them: heat-treated, commercially pure, and non-heat-treated.

Every kind of aluminum alloy can then be additionally sub-divided and characterized by its primary alloying additive. This is accomplished by assigning each kind of alloy a four-digit number to help categorize it, in which the first digit determines a general class.

1. Primary High Precision Aluminum:

   alloys consisting of ninety nine percent or higher purity.

1xxx Class: Has excellent resistance to corrosion, excellent workability, in addition to higher thermal and electrical conductivity. This Class is usually used for transmission lines that link national grids throughout the US.

2. Aluminum Heat Treating:

   alloys that are reinforced through an intense heating and cooling operation. Alloys get heated to particular points for evenly distributing the additives inside and then rapidly cooled, freezing them in place.

2xxx Class: Copper is utilized as the primary alloying additive. These alloys possess a good mixture of strong resistance and durability. Typically, they are used in aircraft production.

6xxx Class: Primary alloying additives are magnesium and silicon. These alloys are adaptable, heat treatable, weldable, formable, strong, and resistance to corrosion. Usually are utilized in automobile production.

7xxx Class: Zinc is utilized as the primary alloying additive with minute amounts of magnesium, chromium, or copper, for increasing strength. These are heat-treatable and have very strong resistance. Typically utilized in the commercial aviation industry.

3. Non-Heat Treatable Aluminum:

   alloys that are reinforced using a process referred to as cold working. This happens by “metalworking” the metal through its rolling or forging phases and building up dislocations in the metal’s atomic arrangement for increasing its strength.

3xxx Class: Manganese is the primary alloying additive, typically with minute quantities of magnesium added. These alloys have average strength and good malleability. Typically, they are used for cookware and beverage cans.

4xxx Class: Silicon is the primary alloying additive. These alloys create lower melting points without producing fragility. Typically, they are utilized for structural applications and welding wires.

5xxx Class: Magnesium is the main alloying additive. These alloys have average, to high strength, good weldability, and resistance to corrosion in aquatic settings. Usually are utilized in marine applications and building construction.

Why Use Aluminum?

Up to this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what aluminum is and how it’s made; however, here’s the big question: why do we use it?

Aluminum is easily accessible, cost effective, lightweight, pliable, durable, malleable, conductive, etc. One of the biggest attributes that set aluminum apart, though, is its variability.

No other metal compares to aluminum in regard to the variety of applications it has when alloyed with other additives. Additionally, aluminum is endlessly recyclable and is one of the few materials on the planet that pays for the expense of its own collection.

Combining its viability with its adaptability makes aluminum metal not only one of the most paramount metals on the planet but additionally one of the most utilized across innumerable industries.