2 ms·
Weird how wikipedia do not make much mention of aluminum as a fire hazard. Most of the focus seems to be on how it does not have the tell tale signs of melting
by digi_owl 9y ago
Weird how wikipedia do not make much mention of aluminum as a fire hazard. Most of the focus seems to be on how it does not have the tell tale signs of melting that say iron has.
It has half the melting point of iron, and shows no yellow-orange glow until it just collapse.
Basically it kinda seem to be all fine unless you have a thermal camera, until it just flops into a liquid.
now powdered aluminum do go off like firework when exposed to an open flame.
- jacquesm 9y agoAluminum oxidizes so rapidly that you can't even normally connect to it unless you take all kinds of precautions to make sure that the bare aluminum does not instantly grow another layer of oxide (which is non-conducting). And that's at ambient temperatures and the normal oxygen content %age of the air. Hence the existence of special aluminum connectors which keep the joint under constant pressure for the life of the connection, you can see these at work in lightweight powerlines. Complications can quickly cause real problems because as the skin forms the resistance of the connection goes up and this causes power to be lost increasing the temperature of the joint. This can lead to a runaway effect, if you're lucky the whole thing disconnects before something bad happens, if you're unlucky you have an electrical fire on your hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring So even if aluminum has lots of really good properties for wiring it is still only used in a relatively small number of specialized applications. Another spot where you will find Aluminum and its rapid oxidization property exhibited clearly is in solid rockets (as fuel) and fireworks (to give you some nice colored effects).