Pouring Molten Aluminum from 50 feet! What will happen?

hey guys back here scientists here you know i've always wondered what would happen if you poured a molten aluminum off of a really tall building would it turn into a giant metal spike on its way down would it break apart like water and turn into molten aluminum rain droplets or would it solidify into cool shapes on its way down there's only one problem i don't think anyone's going to let me pour molten aluminum off of their really tall building and i can't pour it off of my house it's only one story tall i need to get hot so somehow i swindled a heavy equipment rental agency into letting me get a 50-foot man lift so i'm going to be honest with you guys i have no idea how to use this machine but i've been watching youtube videos on what not to do but it doesn't matter because the guy pretty much assured me that this machine basically won't let me kill myself on it all right quick walk through safety inspection this is mildly concerning this is probably nothing to be concerned about you know i'm not one to normally care about safety so i'm not going to first thing you do put the arms down so it can level itself so the guy said something about wearing a safety belt so you don't tip off and i saw something online about wearing a safety noose no i don't think that was right all right let's see how high this thing can go oh no all right so i haven't planned this out very well there's a lot of trees on my property and i don't think i can go up 50 feet so i'm gonna have to find somewhere to do this with more land and less trees and i think i know just the spot so we went over to my friend steven's place and this solved the tree problem but we still have another problem so i'm going to be honest [Music] i think i forgot the key no no so crisis averted apparently steven's dad had a key that would work because apparently all the keys are i guess exactly the same or some things well it's true today i learned that most heavy equipment brands have their own universal key not only that but you can buy an entire set of them on amazon prime oh i am already too high i this is i can almost touch you you have not gone nearly far enough you're one tenth one fifth of the way there this is it this is how i die oh my god i hate this i hate i'm not even afraid of heights i just hate this i know it doesn't look like i'm that high steven but you come up here and you tell me what you think about this because it is it's scary i don't know how you do this my mom would be crying and she's egging steven on to go higher you're there 50 feet all the way all the way you can't even fit this all in the camera it's way up there that is this is really high all right time for experiment number one we're gonna see if molten aluminum can cool before it hits the ground and i think the best way to do that is to bring it up on the lift and let it cool so it just starts to solidify and right when it's about to solidify pour it off that way it has the best chance of cooling before it hits the ground and maybe we can collect some frozen droplets of aluminum we set up a fish tank below to capture the aluminum and filled it with rocks so the hot metal won't crack the glass now i've just got to load up the aluminum and head up on the left all right it's starting to solidify i've got to pour now all right three two one oh no stephen we missed the fish tank my gosh the grass is on fire well even though we missed the fish tank i could still tell that the molten aluminum was still molten by the way it splashed on the side of the fish tank unfortunately we missed the pool by about three feet so we have to move the pool and move the fish tank back about three feet hopefully it'll work this time okay so for test number two i want to see if i can get aluminum to explode on contact with water and you might not think of aluminum as a very reactive metal under the right circumstances aluminum should react with water just like sodium or potassium metal does it's really tricky to get it to explode though because normally aluminum is actually so reactive with the air it instantly forms a protective layer of aluminum oxide the second that it touches the oxygen so if you pour that into water slowly you're not going to disturb that oxide layer and the chances of getting an explosion are pretty small so anyway in order to get the molten aluminum to react and explode with water we need to remove the oxide layer from the surface and i think the best way to do that is to pour it from really high up and hopefully when it hits the water it disturbs it and just goes boom but hopefully it doesn't boom too much because i'm going to be 50 feet above it when that happens look at how orange hot that aluminum is that's super hot you know i've heard the hotter it is the aluminum has a better chance to explode oh my gosh the drone's giving me a warning high wind warning what about me all right i'm gonna do a little test all right all right we're on target now for the moment of truth here we go three two one [Applause] something interesting i noticed about molten aluminum is it doesn't fall like a normal raindrop shape like you think it might it actually turns into these little diamonds as it falls through the air then it turns sideways before it hits the water and then looking back at the high speed footage i didn't really see any explosions when the aluminum hit the water i saw a lot of big splashes but i wouldn't exactly say that they're explosions i guess it's harder to get molten aluminum to explode with water than i thought it was going to be i guess i'll revisit this in a future video but for now i want to try something else instead of big globs of aluminum cooling before they hit the ground that's probably not going to happen there is too much mass it's never going to solidify on the way down so we're going to try something else we're going to use this pasta strainer with a bunch of little holes and i'm going to pour aluminum into it and i'm hoping that a bunch of little droplets of aluminum will pour out of this thing instead of one big chunk and maybe these little tiny raindrops of molten aluminum will solidify before they hit the ground all right let's see if this is sturdy enough to support 10 pounds of aluminum i'd say so all right aluminum is hot and ready to go so let's get started this part's always just mildly terrifying okay time to go up all right i'm gonna do a little test all right oh my gosh are you kidding me uh i guess i'll try it all right did you see that all over the place it made it go all over wow all right look it's still in there i regret shaking the platform immediately that was awesome [Music] looks like it was still molten by the time it hit the ground i'm pretty sure i don't see any raindrop shaped pieces of aluminum so i don't think that it cooled before i hit the ground looking back at the high speed video you can definitely tell that the aluminum would still molten by the time that it hit the ground you can see the aluminum splashing on the edges of the fish tank but hey even if the aluminum was solid by the time that it hit the ground you would still not want to be in this rainstorm instead of singing in the rain you would be screaming in the ranks so steven had this idea instead of trying to pour molten aluminum off the lift we're just gonna throw some solid aluminum off the lift but first let me tell you about a solid way to protect yourself online so why do you need to protect yourself online well here's an analogy let's say you're a fish tank a fish tank on the internet full of valuable information now you see this guy up here he wants to steal your information watch oh that's right he can't because you have nordvpn so what is a vpn and why do you need one here's a scenario let's say you're a fish tank a fish tank on the internet without a vpn people can see right inside hackers the government your internet service provider this guy again but nordvpn obscures your location and traffic over the internet so nobody can see what's actually going on inside nordvpn is so powerful it can bypass content filters in restrictive countries like china and saudi arabia imagine living in a country where the government can decide what you can and can't see i'm proud to live in a free country where only multinational corporations can decide what you can and can't see based on arbitrary licensing deals by the way nordvpn can get around those annoying things too now i've had nordvpn for two years now since i did my first nordvpn sponsorship i literally use it every day from the moment i log on on my computer it's always connected and i sincerely urge you guys to take your online safety seriously and protect yourself online so get a huge discount on two years of nordvpn at nordvpn.com backyard and when you use the code backyard you'll get an extra month for free take control of your internet experience today with nordvpn again that's a huge discount on a two-year plan of nordvpn so go to nordvpn.com backyard and use the code backyard for your extra month free now it's time to smash that fish tank [Music] no okay time for take two oh yeah that was awesome that was so satisfying oh man that turned out awesome look at it all right so pouring molten aluminum off of a really tall building and hoping that it freezes really isn't that crazy of an idea it's actually how they used to make lead shot for shotgun shells but those towers were over 200 feet tall and some of them had fans blowing up from the bottom too to cool the lead shot as it fell down anyway i'm not giving up on this idea just yet there's got to be somebody out there that has a tall building that'll let me pour aluminum off of it but anyway that's the end of this video for now i had a good time i hope you guys did too see you next time bye you

Channel: TheBackyardScientist

Views: 686,896

Rating: 4.8835206 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 8_QuoA_WCcY

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021