Aluminum Heating Experiment

Hi.

Does anyone on this group have a metal forge capable of heating to around 900C-1000C, like the fires in the WTC, and has tried heating a crucible full of aluminum up to that temperature, to see if it can glow red or yellow hot? And confirmed the temperature of the metal using a high-temperature measuring instrument?

I have 2 metal forges, by the way, but the one I'm using now, which is fired by gas, does not get up to the needed 900C-1000C so I couldn't run the test. The other one is fired with coal and might work, though, but I don't have the necessary setup to use it again at this time. And furthermore, I don't have the necessary accurate temp.-measuring equipment (I pretty much guesstimate the temp. based on the color instead.). So I could not perform this experiment myself. Although if I can get this stuff ready at some point I might go and do a test run. If it _does_ glow yellow hot as you claim it _doesn't_, then will you concede the point?


[edit on 7-1-2009 by mike3]

Aluminum is said by the people who work with it to be the most toxic metal a welder or a cutter could risk thier health to. Some danish welders told me thier country has done extensive test. I've seen many welders flat out decline to do work that requires the burning or heating or cutting or welding of aluminum; even just a tiny bit of work. I hope that says enough for you to peek into that avenue further.

Be careful to take all the appropriate respitory/brain/skin precautions.

Well for whats its worth... when we were yonger, 12 to 14, me a frined used to make fires in his backwoods, their was a pitt we mae into a small livable place..kinda like a funhuose but hugely makeshift..so we used to make fires inside a ring of rocks..and sometimes, wede throw our soda cans in the fire, or find an aluminum soup can..theyd turn black and carbon up, not one out of many ever melted.. a few times, me a friend once lit a 13 oz coffee can filled with 75% gasoline on fire, it carboned up bub did not melt at all..did give off black smoke though, as if the aluminum was burning into particles going into the air.. and 2 times, i set a can of berrryman B 12 complete fuel ssytem cleaner on fire, emptied, ignighted tha vapors..same thing..burned like a furry, black somke came fromt eh fire tip, but didnt melt.

You have a typo in your thread title, the correct spelling of the metal is Aluminium

Can't help you out with the smelting though.

Aluminum melts as a silvery liquid similar in appearance to mercury. It does not emit any luminescence due to the heat of melting.

I assume you're post is referring to the dripping orange-hot material seen in several videos of the impact point of one of the towers.

The apparent behavior of the material is nearly consistent with the behavior of steel when heated to over 2,500 degrees.

Hope this helps.

I think the problem is getting aluminium up to the temperature where it becomes incandescent because its melting point is approx half the temperature we know as 'red-hot'. Aluminium oxidises very rapidly even at room temperature and this accelerates with rising temperature but the oxide is very stable and acts as a blanket to exclude air from molten metal underneath the oxide layer. In the electrolytic refining of Al a flouride compound known as 'cryolite' is floated on top of the molten metal to prevent oxidisation (rapid oxidisation is better known as fire).

You may have heard the term 'colour temperature' which is exactly that IE the colour indicates the temperature of heated material and a visible red glow is indicative of a temperature around 800C regardless of the material. Aluminium can be heated to incandescence if oxygen can be kept away from it. EG in TIG welding processes using inert gas shielding (usually argon).

The short story is that it will glow like anything else if it can be heated up to the visible temperature range without losing it all to oxidisation in the process.

reply to post by mike3


2 things wrong with your experiment:

1). A NIST assistant professor has already tried to recreate this and failed.

www.youtube.com...

2). More importantly, if you need a metal forge to be able to recreate this glowing in daylight effect, then that in itself should tell you it didn't happen on 9/11.

[edit on 1/7/2009 by Griff]

Originally posted by Griff
reply to post by mike3

 

2 things wrong with your experiment:

1). A NIST assistant professor has already tried to recreate this and failed.

www.youtube.com...

2). More importantly, if you need a metal forge to be able to recreate this glowing in daylight effect, then that in itself should tell you it didn't happen on 9/11.

[edit on 1/7/2009 by Griff]

The problem is that a blow torch is not an accurate simulation of a building fire with flames _all around_. If you look at the zone in the tower where the "strange" liquid falls out of, you can see it's burning in there, so whatever metal is in there would be surrounded by flames and other burning material. Hence the use of a forge which provides multidirectional instead of just point heat.

Originally posted by HugmyRek
Aluminum is said by the people who work with it to be the most toxic metal a welder or a cutter could risk thier health to. Some danish welders told me thier country has done extensive test. I've seen many welders flat out decline to do work that requires the burning or heating or cutting or welding of aluminum; even just a tiny bit of work. I hope that says enough for you to peek into that avenue further.

Be careful to take all the appropriate respitory/brain/skin precautions.

Well, I'd then probably just set up a camera to do the observing, and find some way to remote-control the forge.

[edit on 7-1-2009 by mike3]

Originally posted by mike3
If you look at the zone in the tower where the "strange" liquid falls out of, you can see it's burning in there, so whatever metal is in there would be surrounded by flames and other burning material. Hence the use of a forge which provides multidirectional instead of just point heat.

If you look at the zone where the molten metal is pouring from, you will notice that you are incorrect when you say it was "surrounded by flames". As you can see, there are no flames shooting out the windows where this metal is pouring from.

Also, how can something pouring in open air be "surrounded by flames"?



Hence, using a metal forge would not simulate real world. Sorry.

[edit on 1/7/2009 by Griff]

I started thinking about this a little more. If the fire was so hot as to heat aluminum to the point where it glows in broad daylight and continues to glow, then why is none of the aluminum cladding starting to melt? Or at least char or deform from the heat?

reply to post by Griff

Another point to keep in mind is that aluminum, if heated to the point where it is flowing on the floor and running out a hole in the wall, will do so long before it reaches a temperature at which it glows yellow/orange in daylight.

Another important property of aluminium alloys is their sensitivity to heat. Workshop procedures involving heating are complicated by the fact that aluminium, unlike steel, will melt without first glowing red. Forming operations where a blow torch is used therefore requires some expertise, since no visual signs reveal how close the material is to melting.

en.wikipedia.org...

I'm obviously not a metallurgist but I did note that some aluminum alloys melt at a lower temperature than aluminum itself. A case in point is Aluminum 7075 which is a higher strength alloy used to make aircraft wings and frames, and which melts at a lower temperature than pure aluminum (900 deg. F. vs. 933 deg. F. for pure aluminum.)

Case closed. The stuff is not aluminum.


[edit on 7-1-2009 by ipsedixit]

reply to post by mike3

You should still be able to do your experiment with the equipment you have.

The melting and boiling points of aluminum are as follows (from the webpage linked above):

Melting point 933.47 K (660.32 °C, 1220.58 °F)
Boiling point 2792 K (2519 °C, 4566 °F)

en.wikipedia.org...



[edit on 7-1-2009 by ipsedixit]

I have an aluminum experiment that everyone can do at home now, no heat required:

Stand on a pop can, then simultaneously give a quick poke on opposite sides of the can with your index fingers. You just witnessed towers 1, 2 & 7 collapsing.

Now take another can insert a roll of chicken wire into the center of the can, and try the same procedure. I guarantee you'll find different results.

Originally posted by Griff


I started thinking about this a little more. If the fire was so hot as to heat aluminum to the point where it glows in broad daylight and continues to glow, then why is none of the aluminum cladding starting to melt? Or at least char or deform from the heat?

I have often wondered this Griff.

Not to mention there is smoke literally pouring off what ever is "burning" as if there is a inferno, but your looking at a corner so there should be large flames very visible. Yet it appears that there are little to no flames which are present in other photos.

I don't know but lets see here supposedly metal micro spheres found in the dust. Almost white orange hot metal flowing from the building moments before the collapse. Evidence of high temperature corrosion , sulfur attack, steel beams doing things no ones ever seen before.

Griff you figure if your gonna bring down the building but it has to be done so as to make it look like the planes did it your gonna have to do it with the least amount of "booms" possible. So you figure weaken the building with some form of super high grade thermate type of product. The corners would hold alot of the weight of the building I would think (correct me if Im wrong) would the corners be a good area to weaken? Or would attacking the corners this way not make much sense?

Wh

Even if you got it to 900C-1000C in your forge, you take it out and drop it through open air and the outer surface of it is going to turn silvery again fast. So also ask the person doing the experiment to take the aluminum out of the forge, and see how long it keeps its appearance.

Based on all the descriptions i've read on visual ques, it looks like iron to me, (a close up)
but what do i know... i'm the one proposing the scholarly popcan experiment.

The trick is going to be, a melt and pour from a considerable height.

It's a shame mythbusters is too afraid to touch this topic.
Just imagine a show with them replicating these conditions with both metals.
Considering they have the means of which to do this and have been pressed by the 911truthers... the next we'd hear from them, would be on late night news... covering a plane crash.

I applaud the effort made here, all i would add is if you managed to pull this off be sure you make a video of the whole process; covering sources of materials, preparations/setup and then of course the experiment itself and just as important is the aftermath, how long did it take to cool and how it change in appearance over that time period... would be ideal with a voice over commentary.

Then we're talking youtube stardom


[edit on 12-1-2009 by The All Seeing I]