20
votes
Aluminum weight saving
I believe it has less to do with strength and more to do with stiffness. A rod of aluminum of the same length and weight as a a steel rod will be just as strong (force required to break) but have ...
- 4,937
15
votes
Can aluminium foil be a thermal insulator?
If furnished in a thin, polished sheet, aluminum will reflect infrared radiation, as for instance in a so-called "space blanket" which consists of a thin sheet of plastic on which a thin and ...
- 13.5k
13
votes
Accepted
Why do manufacturers still make aluminum kitchen utensils?
Yes, steel (even some stainless) may be cheaper than aluminum, but the material cost of an item is seldom the majority of the total cost, especially a small item such as a potato peeler.
Making ...
- 246
10
votes
Can steel be replaced with aluminum alloy in reinforced concrete?
A very important property of steel used in reinforced concrete is that it has similar coefficient of thermal expansion as concrete:
Concrete: $14.5 \cdot 10^{-6} \frac{m}{m\,K}$
Steel: $12.0 \cdot ...
- 1,943
9
votes
Aluminum weight saving
TL;DR: Materials perform differently under different loading conditions. Some applications are more suited for steel others for aluminium
I will try to give another more general perspective/approach, ...
- 24k
9
votes
Accepted
Can aluminium foil be a thermal insulator?
It really depends on what you are trying to do with it. And thermal "conductors" and "insulators" are not a hard and fast distinction in properties like electric conductors or ...
- 516
8
votes
Accepted
Strength of a Vertical Round Aluminum Tube with load cantilevered off it?
I'm going to run with this assuming the arm looks like the following diagram (I'm ignoring the 11.4 pounds of the bar for now to make the concepts easier to explain - that can be added later by ...
- 5,323
8
votes
Can epoxy bond two Aluminum alloy beams?
It does nothing for aerodynamics, the cavity makes the thing bigger and hence producing more drag (a very hypothetical reduction of Cd cannot change that). The point is simply the weight.
Perhaps it ...
7
votes
Accepted
Intuition vs software results
Most soda cans in the US are on the order of 0.1 mm thick according to the sources I've seen. So 0.25 mm seems plausible to me, assuming that you made no errors in your calculations.
- 986
7
votes
Can steel be replaced with aluminum alloy in reinforced concrete?
In short: you can't use aluminium to reinforce concrete. You shouldn't even embed uncoated aluminium in concrete.
Quoting Corrosion of Non Ferrous Metals in Contact with Concrete, "Aluminium suffers ...
- 427
6
votes
Why do manufacturers still make aluminum kitchen utensils?
I looked up 6000 grade aluminum to be about \$2/kg, while 304 stainless steel is about \$3.40/kg.
This means stainless steel is about 70% more expensive than aluminum, which is consistent with my ...
- 3,565
6
votes
Accepted
What is the opposite of flaring a tube (pinching?) and is there a tool to do this with aluminum?
Summary
The general term for changing tube and pipe diameter is swaging. The tools you are looking for exist but vary widely in price and complexity. It may be more straightforward to find a local ...
- 4,031
6
votes
What thickness of aluminium sheet do I need to achieve the same strength of a 1/8" steel sheet?
Using your plate as boat hull implies a complex load profile probably involving compression, shear and bending, possibly even torsion.
In such cases, it is effectively impossible to give a simple ...
- 13k
6
votes
Aluminum weight saving
Sometimes the strength isn't required, so size for size, aluminium is lighter.
e.g. bicycles often use aluminium screws to hold the bottle cage to the frame. The size of the screw is set to be ...
- 7,614
6
votes
Is welding aluminum a good choice?
An option available to you along with welding is a product known as aluminum brazing rod.
When aluminum is heated to melting point, an oxide forms which prevents bonding. In a welding environment, a ...
- 6,795
5
votes
Accepted
How much weight can an aluminum tube beam support?
We use this equation for a simply supported beam loaded at its center with 200lbs. M= P x L/4 =200 x 3 /4 = 150 lbs.ft
for calculating the tube stress we convert this to 150 x 12 = 1800 lbs.inch
...
- 21.6k
5
votes
How can dross/slag formation be reduced during aluminum recycling?
The dross is mostly composed of aluminium oxide which is already present on the surface of the metal before it even goes into the furnace, as the aluminium melts the oxides separate and float to the ...
- 15.1k
5
votes
Intuition vs software results
The Wikipedia page puts tin foil thickness at between 0.2 mm and 0.006 mm. That means that the upper end of the tin foil is easily comparable with the thickness of my box.
Ooook. Let's look at this, ...
- 151
4
votes
Why do manufacturers still make aluminum kitchen utensils?
Re-tooling and re-equipping a factory to use a different metal can be very expensive. If the required rate of return from re-tooling/re-equipping cannot be achieved be it simply isn't done.
The ...
- 9,527
4
votes
Accepted
What is the manufacturing method used to make aluminium C channel
Aluminum sections are extruded from billets heated to 800-925F under high pressure and then pushed through a die.
During the entire process temperature is carefully controlled, because depending on ...
- 21.6k
4
votes
Accepted
Why are aluminum tubes folded at the end
The tube is sealed in the following manner:
The aluminum from which the tube is formed is laminated or otherwise coated with a thin layer of plastic on its inside, which is easily heat-fused together ...
- 13.5k
4
votes
Accepted
What thickness do I need for a 30x30 (cm) aluminium plate to hold 350Kg on three points?
My reputation is too low to comment so I'll give some pointers in an answer :)
Looking at your design your structures weak points are the areas where the plate and the sensors interface, especially ...
- 331
4
votes
Aluminum weight saving
When Zeppelins were designed, only non-sparking materials were allowed for them so the hydrogen gas that invariably seeps from the gas bags would not find an ignition source. Steel did not qualify.
...
- 163
4
votes
Accepted
Aluminium Bolt in Titanium Casing: Any Dangers of (Contact-)Corrosion?
Galvanic Compatibility
Often when design requires that dissimilar metals come in contact, the galvanic compatibility is managed by finishes and plating. The finishing and plating selected facilitate ...
- 7,999
4
votes
Is it legal to have a motor wound with aluminum wire that has the appearance of copper?
All wires used to wind coils for motors must be insulated so adjacent loops of wire do not short-circuit themselves. For some reason the most common form of wire insulation enamel is orange/red in ...
- 13.5k
3
votes
What is the opposite of flaring a tube (pinching?) and is there a tool to do this with aluminum?
For a one-off structure swaging or flaring tube is probably a bit of a long way round to do it. There are actually quite a few off the shelf solutions for joining tube, an example at random
Something ...
- 15.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Aluminum for an Ejection Seat Replica
In your situation (as long as you don't actually intend to use the thing!) 6061-T6 will be just fine. The main reason to pick it is that many more product forms are available in it than most other ...
- 4,511
3
votes
Why do manufacturers still make aluminum kitchen utensils?
Having spent several years in product development at Kitchen-Aid's parent company, I can guarantee that if there were a less expensive way to provide the same function to the consumer, that is how it ...
- 2,135
3
votes
Why do manufacturers still make aluminum kitchen utensils?
I'm guessing that shipping cost could be a reason. For a pallet (or several) of utensils, shaving a few percent weight off of each one could amount to a significant savings in shipping cost, ...
- 3,034
3
votes
Accepted
Pouring aluminum into another block of Aluminum
This is unlikely to work very well.
The biggest issue is that you won't get good adhesion between the two surfaces. aluminium has a particularly resilient and inert surface oxide layer so molten ...
- 15.1k
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