Aluminium as a Metal

Metal of Choice

History of Aluminium

In its 100-year history, aluminium has had an unparalleled impact on the built environment. Since the sheathing of the cupola of the San Gioacchino Church in Rome in 1897, aluminium has risen to prominence among specifiers through landmark projects, such as the curtain walling on Shreve, Lamb & Harmon’s iconoclastic Empire State Building in 1929.

In 1945, Pietro Belushi created the first large structure totally sheathed in aluminium and glass – the Equitable Building in Portland, Oregon; followed by SOM’s Lever Building; Mies van der Rohe and Phillip Johnson’s Seagram Building; and the UN Secretariat in New York.

But even in those pioneering years, the use of aluminium was not confined to modernist landmarks. Indeed, aluminium window frames were installed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford University in 1939, and have since provided eloquent testament to the material’s durability. So what has drawn successive generations of architects to aluminium

Why Aluminium?

In one word – versatility. More than any other material, aluminium has the capability of being extruded into complex shapes to exact tolerances. Other metals, such as steel, can be extruded but they require enormous pressure to pass through the die, rendering all but a few simple extrusions uneconomic.

Aluminium, on the other hand, has been successfully formed into literally thousands of unique profiles, each one able to meet a number of specific structural and aesthetic requirements. It is this capability to provide simple elegant solutions to extremely complex design problems that has led to aluminium’s enduring appeal.

Benefits of Aluminium

Modern life is full of advantages brought about by the use of aluminium. The major benefits of this unique metal are:

Pure aluminium is soft enough to carve, but when mixed with small amounts of other metals to form alloys, it can provide the strength of steel with only one-third of the weight. Without aluminium, there would be no commercial air travel.

Strength

Aluminium sprayed on a polymer forms a thin insulating sheet that can keep a newborn baby warm or save the life of someone on an exposed mountaintop.

Durability

Its combination of properties ensures aluminium and its alloys can be easily shaped by any of the main industrial metalworking processes – rolling, extrusion, forging, and casting.

Flexibility

Aluminium has an excellent barrier function which makes it ideal for food and drink packaging and containers. It keeps out air, light, and microorganisms while preserving the contents inside.

Impermeability

Aluminium used in transportation reduces the weight of the vehicles, thus providing fuel efficiency and reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Lightweight

The metal's natural coating of aluminium oxide provides a highly effective barrier to the ravages of air, temperature, moisture, and chemical attack, making aluminium a useful construction material.

Corrosion-resistant

Once made, aluminium can be recycled again and again, using only a very small fraction of the energy required to make ‘new’ metal. Recycling saves about 95% of the energy required for primary production.

Recyclable

Aluminium is a superb conductor of electricity which has seen it replace copper in many electrical applications. It is also non-magnetic and non-combustible, properties invaluable in advanced industries such as electronics or in offshore structures.

Others

About Aluminium

The demand for aluminium products is increasing year by year for a myriad of reasons:

Aluminium is a young material, and in little more than a century since its first commercial production, it has become the world's second most-used metal after steel.
Aluminium is the metal of choice for leading designers, architects and engineers, who want a material that combines functionality and cost-effectiveness with innovative form and design potential.
Aluminium is an extraordinarily versatile material. The range of forms it can take (from castings, extrusions, tubes, sheets, and plates, to foils, powders, and forgings) and the variety of surface finishes available (including coatings, anodizing, and polishing) means aluminium can be used in many products, most of which we use every day.
Aluminium is light (33% the weight of steel) and this, together with its numerous material qualities, makes it ideal for products that require a balance of lightness and strength.
Aluminium is a good conductor of electricity, with most overhead and many underground transmission lines made of aluminium.
Aluminium transmits conducted heat and reflects radiant heat, making it an excellent medium from which to produce cooking utensils and foils, radiators, and building insulation.
Aluminium is strong, and combined with its low density, makes it ideal for transport and packaging applications.
Aluminium is a unique metal – strong, durable, flexible, impermeable, lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and 100% recyclable.

Properties of Aluminium

Pure aluminium is a silvery-white metal with many desirable characteristics. It is:

Non-toxic

Impervious

Decorative

Easily formed, machined, and casted

Low in density

Corrosion-resistant

Non-magnetic

Easily made into alloys with small amounts of copper, magnesium, silicon, manganese, and other elements, with very useful properties.

Conductor of electricity

Non-combustible

Highly reflective

Heat barrier and heat conductor

Malleable

Easily worked

Abundant. Although not found free in nature, aluminium is an abundant element in the earth's crust.

Strong. Depending on its purity, for example 99.996% pure aluminium, it has a tensile strength of about 49 megapascals (MPa), rising to 700 MPa following alloying and suitable heat treatment.