Physical Properties Of Aluminum

Physical properties of aluminum

Aluminum is a silver-white light metal, soft, density 2.7g/cm3, melting point 660.4℃, boiling point 2467℃, aluminum and aluminum alloys have many excellent physical properties, has been widely used.

Aluminum has good light reflection performance, reflecting ultraviolet light is stronger than silver. The purer aluminum is, the better its reflection ability is. The method of vacuum aluminum plating is commonly used to make high-quality mirrors. Vacuum aluminized film combined with polysilicon film makes a cheap and lightweight solar cell material. Aluminum powder can maintain a silver luster, commonly used to make paint, commonly known as silver powder.

Pure aluminum conductivity is very good, second only to silver, copper, in the power industry it can replace part of the copper as wires and cables. Aluminum is a good conductor of heat, and can be used in industry to make a variety of heat exchangers, cooling materials and civil cookware.

Aluminum has good ductility, can be drawn into fine wire, rolled into a variety of aluminum products, can also be made into thin 0.01mm aluminum foil, widely used in packaging cigarettes, candy, etc.

Aluminum alloys have some better properties than pure aluminum, which greatly broadens the range of applications of aluminum. For example, pure aluminum is soft, when a certain amount of copper, magnesium, manganese and other metals are added to aluminum, the strength can be greatly improved, almost equivalent to steel, and the density is smaller, not easy to rust, widely used in aircraft, cars, trains, ships, artificial satellites, rockets manufacturing. When the temperature drops to -196℃, some steel is brittle like glass, and some aluminum alloys are improved in strength and toughness, so they are cheap and lightweight low-temperature materials, which can be used to store rocket fuel liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.