NARRATOR: Born in
fiery furnaces, it's the miracle material
of spaceships and soda cans. Light enough to fly, but tough
enough to hit a baseball. It can protect and preserve,
or reflect and reveal the secrets of the universe. Stamped, melted, rolled, or even
foam, it has changed the world. Now, aluminum, on
"Modern Marvels." [music playing] There's a good reason the world
devours nearly 100,000 tons of aluminum every day, and why
the United States alone gobbles 25 billion pounds a year. Modern civilization
couldn't survive without it. This strong, lightweight,
flexible, rust-proof wonder is everywhere, an integral
part of the planes we fly, the cars we drive, the
structures of our cities, and the power lines carrying
electricity to our homes. But most know it
best when aluminum is no thicker than a human hair. It's found this way in over 95%
of households as aluminum foil. Impervious to light,
air, and moisture, it's perfect for preparing
and preserving food. There's nothing
better for a barrier. Moisture protection, freshness,
the dead-fold characteristics that we use it to wrap
our products is just-- there's nothing better. NARRATOR: But how
does it get so thin? And why is it shiny on one
side and dull on the other? The Reynolds factory
in Richmond, Virginia, maker of 340,000 pounds of
aluminum foil every day, holds the answers. The aluminum arrives by rail car
as massive 32,000 pound coils. CAROL ROD: Once we
receive the coils, they're unloaded
off the rail car. They go into annealing ovens. The annealing process
helps soften the metal so that we can further reduce
it to the gauge and thickness that most people see in
our standard Reynolds Wrap products. NARRATOR: Each sheet
is 0.0045 of an inch thick, about the same
as a compact disk. Thinning the softened sheet is
a job for the rolling mills. Since the pressure they
exert on the aluminum could create sparks
and ignite fires, a cooling lubricant douses
the sheet as it enters. Inside the mill, the sheet
passes between a pair of powered spinning rollers. Larger, non-powered rollers
positioned above and below them apply even pressure,
helping them flatten the sheet in a uniform manner. One pass through the mill
reduces the sheet thickness by half. It's also getting a lot
longer as the 3,000 yard long coiled sheet makes six passes
through three different rolling mills. When it finishes on
our finishing mill, it's about 240 miles long,
because we've reduced it and increased the length. NARRATOR: This final pass
through the finishing mill holds the secret to why
aluminum foil is shiny on one side but not the other. So in order to
support the metal and ensure we can pull
it through the mill, we double pass it. We have two sheets of metal
running through the mill at the same time. NARRATOR: Since the
outer sides of each sheet contact the highly polished
lubricated ruler surface, they emerge shiny. And since the inner sides
touch only each other, they emerge with a matte finish. After the doubled foil
exits, each single layer is only 0.00064
thousands of an inch thick, six times thinner than a
sheet of standard copier paper. In this process, we're
separating the metal from the double sheet
to single sheet. The separation
occurs at this point. One sheet is going
to the upper rolls, the sheet's in the lower rolls. NARRATOR: As the sheets
of foil separate, a set of knives behind
this metal housing slices the roll into six
equal divisions measuring 12 inches across. Next, mechanical arms
break apart the divisions. Now, the foil is at its
final thickness and width. Shortening each coil
to the standard length happens at the packing facility. The coils run through a
spooler that cuts each sheet and wraps it around a fiber
core 300 times per minute. Machines then guide
the cores into cartons, and the foil is ready to wrap
food for the fridge, freezer, or grill all around the world. But does it matter
which side faces in and which side faces out? Actually, it
makes no difference whether you use the dull versus
the shiny side of the foil. They both are gonna perform the
same for cooking or freezing or storing with foil. NARRATOR: Aluminum
foil's roots stretch back over eight decades, When. Metals other than aluminum
were preserving the goods that fed our sweet tooths
and smoking habits. PAT SCHWEITZER: It
got its origins way back in about the 1920s, when
Reynolds Metals Company was in the business of producing
lead and tin foil that was used in cigarette packaging. And they started wondering if
possibly, this protective foil could be made better and
more economically by using the new metal called aluminum. NARRATOR: Aluminum arrived
for home use in 1947. Touted as a new kitchen
miracle, Reynolds Wrap debuted as a 25-foot long
12-inch wide roll packaged in pink and silver. PAT SCHWEITZER: Well, aluminum
foil as a household foil was never made from lead or tin. It's kind of interesting
that people still refer to it sometimes as tin foil today. NARRATOR: But where
does the aluminum used to make foil, and a
million other things, come from? It's right beneath
our feet, beckoning to miners as the most abundant
metal in the Earth's crust. Out of every one million
atoms in the ground, 82,000 are aluminum. But pure aluminum doesn't
exist on its own in nature. It can be found locked
away in reddish deposits of bauxite ore. The richest deposits of the
ore exist in Australia, Guinea, Brazil, and Jamaica. A refining process will begin to
extract this stubborn aluminum. A caustic soda digests the
ore-rich dirt into a liquid and allows the separation
of its components. The resulting white
residue is then dried into a fine white
powder, a compound called aluminum
oxide, or alumina. This is the stuff from
which aluminum is made. The trick now is isolating
the aluminum from the oxygen. To pull that off, you need
to transport the alumina to a production facility, like
the one Alcoa operates here near Evansville, Indiana. LARRY YORK: We receive a barge
every day at our ore dock. It's got roughly 3.2 million
pounds of alumina on it, and we vacuum it
out of the barge. It's basically
like a large vacuum cleaner that you use at home. NARRATOR: The vacuum snorts
about 300 tons per hour, emptying the barge in 10 hours,
and depositing the powder onto conveyor belts. Actually, there's
no smell to it at all. It's got a real
granular feel to it. It's a little more coarse than
what talcum powder is, more like salt. NARRATOR: Inside the
120-acre mega complex, 750 pots await the powder. Each contains a
molten salt bath. Every two minutes,
an overhead feeder dumps 7 pounds of alumina
into one of the pots. As the powder begins to melt,
the most critical component to isolating the aluminum
takes charge, electricity, and lots of it. The on-site coal plant
delivers enough juice to the pots to
power 300,000 homes. The electricity flows
through copper rods connected to steel blocks suspended
in the pots' salt baths. The aluminum oxide
molecules filling the bath contain two aluminum atoms
and three oxygen atoms. The electric current
breaks the bond and forces the atoms apart. ED KUHN: And in that process,
you're making liquid metal. The metal is a little
bit denser than the bath. It settles to the
bottom of the pot, and then carbon dioxide
bubbles are given off. NARRATOR: But the
process isn't over yet. Workers then have to extract the
molten aluminum from the pots and turn it into a solid. BRIAN AUDIE: Crews literally
vacuum the metal out in a process we call tapping. They use a large container
that's got a spout on it. We apply air to it
and create a vacuum and suck the metal on them
out of the bottom of the pot. NARRATOR: Forklifts then
transport the crucibles to a holding furnace
where cranes lift and spill out the molten metal. Then, channels direct it
into casting chambers, where it will solidify. These hulking monoliths are
destined to become everything from beer cans to boats,
from sauce panels, to siding on your house. Not bad for a metal
that's definitely the new kid on the block. ED KUHN: The one
thing to keep in mind is that aluminum is
a fairly new metal. Bronze, led, iron, copper had
been around for centuries. Aluminum was first actually
discovered as an element by chemist, Sir Davy, in 1808. NARRATOR: But discovering this
unique metal was one thing. Divorcing it from its
ore compound was another. Throughout most of
the 19th century, a variety of chemical
processes could only generate impure samples
in minute quantities. Aluminum was so rare,
it was nearly twice as expensive as gold. In the 1880s, when
advances in processing helped reduce its price,
it was the fitting choice for engineers completing
construction of the Washington Monument, who sought a precious
capstone for their masterwork. The aluminum pyramid they
placed atop the marble spire weighed 100 ounces, at the time,
the largest piece of aluminum ever cast. Two years later, in
1886, came the discovery that made aluminum
accessible and inexpensive. Two scientists
working independently, Frenchman Paul H roult and
American Charles Martin Hall hit upon the chemical electric
extraction process still in use today. Aluminum's market price
plummeted to less than $1 per pound. The breakthrough
unshackled the metal and triggered the rise of
revolutionary new industries. Today, one of those industries
crafts the aluminum that helps lift the most massive
commercial airliner ever built. This Goliath double-decker
jet, the Airbus A380, is the largest commercial
aircraft in the world. It stretches 10 feet
longer and towers 16 feet taller than a Boeing 747. It weighs in at a whopping
1.2 million pounds. And like most commercial
aircraft, 65% of that bulk is aluminum. It's a no-brainer that
aluminum's light weight makes it a perfect construction
material for planes, but more important
is its flexibility. Aluminum is ideally
suited for flying more than any other material. It's important that the material
be able to withstand and give and take in those
pressurizations and depressurizations that
occur thousands of times over the lifecycle
of an airplane. NARRATOR: The wings of the
A380, like any airplane, suffer constant stress. On the ground, they sag
from their own weight. In the sky, the airflow
required for lift pushes the wings in
the opposite direction. The A380's pliable
wing span over 260 feet and are comprised of the
largest pieces of aluminum on the plane. 10 separate sheets case the
surface of each wing, five on top and five underneath. They cover a series of
aluminum ribs and spars, which form the skeleton needed
to support the wings' length. The wing skins for the A380 are
among the thousands of aluminum parts made here at Alcoa's
Davenport Works Mill in Iowa. The plant is large enough
to contain a golf course. Mill workers craft wing
sections up to 112 feet long and weighing over 11,000 pounds. They begin with enormous 18-inch
thick 70-inch wide aluminum alloy blocks weighing
30,000 pounds. The task of transforming
each into a giant wing skin begins with this beastly
rolling mill measuring over 18 feet across, the
widest in the world. MIKE ADDABBO: It's rolled
along its longitudinal axis down to the proper gauge. Every pass, the top
row gets lowered, so you're squeezing that metal
through a narrower, narrower slot. NARRATOR: Just like the raw
sheets that become aluminum foil, the metal will get
thinner and thinner and longer and longer, until it
is about 1 inch thick. Saws then cut each flattened
plate to various shapes depending on where they'll
be positioned on the wing. Finally, twin milling heads
refine and taper the pieces as necessary by skimming
the plate surface. We use 30-inch
diameter cutter. It will generate this
machined pattern on here that looks like swirls. NARRATOR: The
completed wing skins are now ready for assembly
by Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers. Flying with anything
but aluminum seems almost
inconceivable today. Yet, plane-making pioneers
fashioned the bodies of their craft out of
fabric covered wood. But wood could rot and splinter. Seeking a more durable
material following World War I, German designer Hugo
Junkers was among the first to build planes sheathed
in an aluminum alloy. In 1935, the Douglas DC-3
and its all-aluminum body ushered in the age
of commercial flight. Sporting longer and larger
wings than its predecessors, it could fly higher and faster. It could also carry more fuel,
minimizing refueling stops. The duration of a
coast-to-coast flight fell from an agonizing
26 hours to less than 18. And today, aluminum carries
commercial travelers through the air for more than
800 billion miles every year. But planes aren't the only
form of transportation revolutionized by aluminum. Each year, the
automotive industry uses over 15 billion pounds
of aluminum to make our cars. And with every year, it's using
proportionately less and less steel. Why? Well, for starters,
it saves gas. Aluminum is significantly
lighter than steel, and it gives you
somewhere between 30% and 50% mass reduction
compared to steel. And the general rate-- ratio is
if you take 10% of the mass out of the vehicle, you
can get up to about 8% of improvement in fuel economy. NARRATOR: Automakers
prefer aluminum not only because it's the perfect diet
pill for steel heavy cars, but also because it's
easier to melt and to shape. That's a big plus when it
comes to casting the parts for the engine that represents
much of a car's weight. What we've done here
is take two crucibles. We've filled one with
aluminum and the other one with chunks of steel. We put both of these
crucibles in a furnace, and we set the first at
800 degrees centigrade. We can see that the
aluminum is melted, and the steel is still chunks
of steel that are sitting there. Maybe a big red hot, but
nevertheless, not melted. This is one of the most critical
and important attributes of aluminum, that it can
melt at low temperatures, so we can melt it and poured
into cavities to make castings. NARRATOR: All this
fluid wonder metal is helping cars lose
weight under their hoods. It's also helping them get
their bodies into shape. It also allows you
to make a lot of shapes that you couldn't
make otherwise. NARRATOR: One way GM shapes its
aluminum parts is with water in a process known
as hydroforming. The reason we do
hydroform is we're able to form it in
any particular shape that we need it without
welding sections together. The hydroforming process
allows us to make one part, and it's proven to be higher
durability than you get out of two pieces welded together. NARRATOR: These
water-shaped tubes will become part of the
frame of a Corvette. Once a tube enters the
die, high-capacity pumps flood it with up to
100 gallons of water. The resulting pressure
helps the aluminum form into the precise
shapes of the die. It's all over in less
than two minutes. I'm sitting in the Corvette
body structure that contains aluminum hydroformed rails. These aluminum rails
replaced steel rails that served the same
function, but were heavier. This enables us to produce
a Corvette that is lighter and has better 0 to 60 time than
you would get with the steel version. NARRATOR: The pressure to
shape aluminum car parts isn't restricted to water. You can also use air with a
new technology known as QPF. It stands for Quick Plastic
Forming, which is not plastic. We're working with aluminum. But we take aluminum to an
elevated temperature state in order to form parts in shapes
that we can't normally form. In this operation, we're making
the Cadillac STS trunk lid. The inner panel is
just now coming out of the press fully formed. What's coming in is the
pre-heated aluminum sheet. As soon as that
die gets close, we use air pressure to force that
aluminum up against that steel die cavity that
gives us our shape. NARRATOR: QPF technology
fashioned aluminum body panels for GM's fuel cell powered
concept car, the Sequel. Whether powered by a hydrogen,
battery, or hybrid engines, future vehicles must
become lighter than ever to be competitive. When you put a lot of
money into the powertrain, like you need to do
in those vehicles, it doesn't make sense to
pull around a steel cage. NARRATOR: But aluminum is also
a big hit in a different kind of cage, a batting cage. And one of the secrets to
creating a bat that'll clean up against the competition
is to give it one outrageously hot bat. ng] A wood bat is the foundation
of professional baseball, and has been since before
the days of The Babe. To maintain that
tradition, pro players can't use anything else. But aspiring pros aren't
required to use wood. In fact, more than 90%
of all bats sold today are made not from
wood, but aluminum. The reasons are obvious. First, bats made from
aluminum are lighter, enabling players to generate
more bat speed as they swing. Unlike wood, aluminum can
be strategically balanced along the length of
the bat, allowing it to channel vibrations
and transfer energy more efficiently. As a result, on
contact, baseballs fly up to 20 feet farther. And the bat's sweet spot, the
ideal hit zone, is larger. They debuted at the
collegiate level in 1974 and forever altered
the nature of the game. By 1976, the batting averages
for NCAA had climbed 30 points. So there was a big difference
in terms of just simply putting the ball in play. NARRATOR: The Anderson Bat
Company in Orange County, California, one of the few
remaining American bat makers, crafts 300 aluminum
bats every day. The simple shape
of the aluminum bat masks the precise science
behind its creation. The aluminum has the
strength to weight ratio that is probably the
most advantageous of any of the metals. NARRATOR: Anderson makes
its top-of-the-line bat from an aluminum alloy with a touch
of zinc that adds toughness and durability. The process begins with 17 foot
long hollow aluminum tubes. An operator saws
the tubes to lengths ranging from 22 to 26 inches,
depending on the final bat model. Then, it's up to a machine
called the rotary swager to reshape each tube
into a precisely molded and balanced bat. The aluminum fits
over a mandrel bar as it enters the swager
between a twin pair of dies. As the tapered die halves
rotate, they open out. A series of spinning rollers
positioned around the perimeter shove the dies back
and close them. The rotation opens and
closes the dies 1,500 times per minute. As the aluminum
feeds into swager, it's forced to take the shape
of the narrowing die cavity. The aluminum needs three passes
through the rotary swager. Each pass thins the wall
and elongates the tube. The final pass
tapers the handle. This is the cut stock. This is what you saw earlier. And it's 26 inches long. This one is a first pass. It's the thinning stage of it. This is a second-- a second thinning stage. And you can see that
as-- as we going thin, the tube gets longer. And then this is the final pass. And while this is 26,
this is 41 inches long. NARRATOR: These bats may now be
expertly shaped and balanced. But before they can
punish baseballs, they have to be hardened. This happens just
a few miles away at a facility where
a hot bath waits to heat treat the aluminum. The bath doesn't hold hot water,
but rather, sodium nitrate. Unlike water, the salt solution
won't corrode the aluminum. Heat treat as
a 2-step process. An elevated temperature for
a certain amount of time, and then a rapid
cooling called a quench. It's kind of exciting, because
you go from this salt bath to a water tank, you have to do
it with less than 15 seconds. NARRATOR: The rapid
cooling following the elevated temperature soak
creates microscopic particles in the aluminum, which
strengthen the metal. After the bats bake in an oven
to preserve their hardness and shape, an inspector
checks each one to see if it's a
hit or an error. MARK CLINE: What we're
looking for is a range. If it's too hard, the
aluminum can crack, and if it's too soft,
obviously, it will dent. NARRATOR: After the inspection,
workers at another facility add the graphics and color. And workers back at
Andersen Bat Company apply the finishing touches,
an end on the handle, a cap, and the grip. How does this
finely-crafted aluminum bat compare to one made of wood? What we're measuring is
the velocity of the ball off of the bat from a tee. And the radar gun actually
picks up the very fastest point of the ball between
the tee and the gun. And we're going to
start with the wood bat. That's 86 miles an hour. 85. NARRATOR: And now,
the aluminum bat. 91. 91. Wow. If say, this point right
here is my ideal hit zone we're I'm gonna get
my best performance. With an aluminum bat,
the size of that hit zone is gonna be larger
than with the wood bat. So say, the wood bat is gonna
be the size of a baseball, your aluminum bat's
gonna be double that, it's going to be
the size of two baseballs. So the chances of me getting
better performance when I miss an at bat is going to increase
as opposed to using a wood bat. NARRATOR: Will aluminum bats
ever graduate from college to the pros? Don't hold your breath. Baseball is a very traditional
sport, and wood, the crack of the bat, all of that is
very much a part of the fabric of baseball. At the same time, if you
were to put an aluminum bat in the hands of
professional players, you would have to change
all of the records. They'd have to be asterisked. NARRATOR: Ball players
aren't the only ones reaching new heights with aluminum. NASA is using it to
gaze into the deepest reaches of the universe. In 2016, a new telescope called
the Giant Magellan, the world's largest, will begin
peering skyward from an observatory in Chile. A cluster of seven mirrors
more than 80 feet in diameter will redirect so much
light from the heavens to astronomers'
eyes, it will produce images up to 10 times
sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. It will allow
astronomers to study newly discovered black
holes, stars, and galaxies. But the Giant Magellan wouldn't
see anything without aluminum coating each mirror. Your mirror at home
uses a layer of silver, and it's actually slightly
more reflective than aluminum. But astronomers use aluminum
for their telescopes because it's more durable and
less expensive to maintain. Making aluminum-coated
mirrors for telescopes isn't as simple as dipping a
brush in buckets of aluminum paint and slapping it on glass. Just ask the scientists at
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The setting for
the transformation of glass into mirror
is a vacuum chamber. FELIX THREAT: The
process of coating the mirror demands that
the environment not be contaminated. We actually evacuate most of
the air out of the chamber. So the cleaner the
chamber is, the cleaner the coating is going to be. NARRATOR: With the
glass in place, it's time to add the aluminum. These staples are
99.999 pure aluminum. We use these as the base
for the aluminum coatings. We put them on by hand
on the tungsten filaments to prepare it for
the coating process. NARRATOR: The lid lowers,
sealing the chamber, and a pump removes
virtually all the air. An electric current heats the
filaments, melting the staples, and removing any lingering
impurities in the aluminum. Once the aluminum
is melted, this is the way it looks
on the filament. So you can see that the aluminum
is no longer a hard staple, but it's actually wedded along
the coil of the filament. NARRATOR: Next, a
second, stronger electric current passes
through the filaments. In a blinding flash,
the aluminum vaporizes. The hot aluminum gas rises and
condenses on the cooler glass surface. The deposited layer
is 1,500 times thinner than a human hair. But as shiny as the
aluminum coating is, it faces a host of enemies. Over time, moisture,
and pollen, and bugs, and things like that will
get on the optical surfaces and they'll start etching
into the aluminum, and they degrade the
coating over time. NARRATOR: The only
way to restore an aluminum-coated mirror is
to remove the corrupted coating and replace it with a fresh one. It's a major event
for observatories, and a necessity about
every two years. First, technicians
must remove the mirror from the telescope's housing. Stripping off the old coating
starts with soap and water. Chemical solvents then eat
away the aluminum coating to reveal the
underlying glass base. Next, paper towels are used
to clean and dry the glass before a vacuum chamber
lowers into place and deposits the shiny aluminum. Bugs and dirt aren't a worry
for the orbiting 95-inch aluminum-coated
mirror on the Hubble. But NASA engineers have to
guard it against an entirely different threat. CHARLES FLEETWOOD:
You go up in space, and you have extreme
differentials. If it's facing the
Sun, if it's nighttime, you're talking hundreds
of degrees in variation, and that'll change the
contour of the mirror. NARRATOR: Trying to
lick the problem, NASA scientists have developed
a new kind of aluminum mirror without a glass base. You can use to
aluminum to make your mirror and the
mounting structure, all out of the same material. If the temperature changes, then
your mirror and your mounting structure then shrinks or
expands by the same amount, so you don't get
distortions and stresses that will twist the mirror and
distorts imaging properties. NARRATOR: The challenge
for NASA's engineers is to turn pure aluminum disks
like this one into mirrors. Pulling that off
requires getting rid of the rough surface. A diamond-tipped
lathe is the answer. It will dig in just
below the surface, and in a uniform slice,
begin to smooth the aluminum to a natural shine. During the procedure, a
paint thinner solution sprays away debris. It also cools the diamond
tip, which heats up as it carves into the metal. And after just two minutes,
a final polishing treatment will smooth out leftover
microscopic imperfections. NASA scientists speculate that
pure aluminum mirrors like this could someday replace the more
common aluminum-coated glass mirrors. Of course, NASA's love
affair with aluminum isn't just limited to mirrors. ORLANDO FIGUEROA:
Anything you want to lift off the surface of the
Earth, you're fighting gravity. So you want to look for
materials that are very lightweight and strong, and take
advantage of other properties. And reducing the mass
to take it to orbit is-- is-- is a big deal. Every pound, every ounce counts. And so the aluminum has a
perfect combination of many of the characteristics
we look for. It is very lightweight,
it's malleable, meaning that you can
work with it easier. It doesn't corrode. It's easy-- if you look
around anywhere in NASA, you will see it being applied
in just about everything we do. NARRATOR: And it's been that
way for over five decades. ORLANDO FIGUEROA: It has been
one of those materials that actually have made
many of the things that we're doing now possible. NARRATOR: As aluminum continues
to help us explore new worlds, it may also prevent
terrorist bombings from leveling our buildings. This spongy new wonder
could save your life. 1983, Beirut, the United
States embassy building. 1995, Oklahoma City, the Alfred
P Murrah Federal Building. 1998, the United States
embassies in East Africa. The structures in these
attacks proved no match against a devastating explosion
unleashed by a powerful bomb. But these buildings may have
fared better had they been clad in an innovative form of
aluminum produced by Canada's Cymat Technologies. They call it aluminum foam. Its unique,
sponge-like structure could prove to be a
lifesaver around the globe. CHRIS SKILLEN: The foam
basically absorbs the shockwave so that there isn't
such a severe impact. And so if you had blast
protected the concrete column supporting the structure,
there's an excellent chance that the buildings wouldn't have
collapsed, and a lot of lives would've been saved. NARRATOR: Aluminum
foam's key ingredient is nothing more than air. But the real trick to making
it isn't injecting air bubbles into the aluminum, it's
keeping the bubbles intact once they're inside. Our material is molten
aluminum with ceramic particles in it. Those particles
stabilize the bubbles. In other words, stop
them from popping. A good example of
this is if you've ever tried to use dried cocoa
powder and mix it into milk. And as you're doing
that, you see this frost forming on the surface with-- with the dried cocoa
in the bubbles. The bubbles are stable. NARRATOR: Cymat begins
its production process by melting down aluminum
bars already containing the ceramic particles. The furnace holding materials
spills a scolding stream into a channel leading
to a receptacle called the foaming box. Now, it's time for
the all-important air. Inside the foaming box, a nozzle
injects air, creating bubbles in the molten concoction. More air creates a less dense
and lighter final product. A propeller at the
end of the nozzle keeps the ceramic particles
evenly distributed. The bubbles rise, and as
they reach the surface, begin to cool and harden. When it gets to the
top of the foaming box, it's already
starting to solidify. So it curves up onto the
belt and goes into the press, and that takes a lot of
the heat out very quickly to solidify the cells and
give you the solid panel. NARRATOR: The emerging half
inch thick panels measure 4 by 8 feet. Solid aluminum this size could
weigh more than 300 pounds, but each of these panels
weighs only about 30 pounds. Foamed aluminum can
also be injected into a three-dimensional cast. What looks like a
heavy chunk of metal is actually light enough
to float in water. A view of the casting
skeleton shows why. WAYNE MADDEVER: In
the X-ray machine, we have a part that,
from the outside, looks like a solid
aluminum casting. We're looking right on
the edge of the part. You can see a dark line here
where we're actually looking down the-- the edge of the
casting, but if I rotate this, you can see the
cellular structure. There's a lot more air there
than there is solid material. But the cellular
structure allows it to collapse and absorb energy. Imagine each one of these
little bubbles is breaking, these cells is breaking
as the part is crushed, and there's energy being
absorbed by every one of those walls collapsing. NARRATOR: The idea of a light,
formable, shock-absorbing metal is gaining the attention of
not only government officials, but also, automakers. It may allow cars to shed weight
without sacrificing passenger safety. One of the applications
for this product is crash boxes in automobiles. Crash box is the element
in a bumper system which absorbs the energy
in a low-impact crash. We take a normal hollow
aluminum extrusion that might form that crash box
and we insert aluminum foam inside the product
and then crush it as it would be
crushed in a crash. It does two things,
it absorbs the energy, and it also forces the aluminum
extrusion to create many folds, and every one of those
folds absorbs energy. NARRATOR: Aluminum foam is
just the latest incarnation of this invaluable metal. A world without aluminum,
perhaps I'm biased, but for me, it's unimaginable. NARRATOR: A century before it
helped carry man to the Moon, Jules Verne hinted at
its vast potential, describing it as having
the whiteness of silver, the indestructibility of
gold, the tenacity of iron, and the likeness of glass. But even that great
visionary couldn't have foreseen the
scope of aluminum's many modern applications.
