Why Is Aluminium So Widely Used In Metal Fabrication?
Posted on: 30 June 2020
Aluminium is one of the many materials that metal fabricators work with. However, it should be noted that aluminium is a metal that has many properties that make it particularly suited to fabrication projects. There are various grades and different alloys that aluminium is supplied in. Nevertheless, these minor differences rarely have any impact on the forming processes or the applications that the material can be used for. If you have a fabrication project coming up and are considering which material to tell your chosen metal fabricators to use, then find out more about this versatile material.
Ductility
The fact that aluminium is a very ductile material means that it is highly suited to one-off metal fabrication projects of all kinds. This is because it is relatively easy to form into different shapes, and yet it will be strong once it has been processed. Sheet aluminium is widely used in manufacturing plants to turn into things like pressed drinks cans because it is so reliably ductile. The same property also makes it ideal for fabricating into tubes for things like goalposts.
Extrusion
Because it has a relatively low melting point compared with equally tough metals — such as stainless steel, for example — metal fabricators can extrude it without a large energy cost. In other words, it does not take a huge amount of heat energy to warm the material up so that it can be forced through a die at pressure. When extruded aluminium has cooled, it retains its silvery appearance, too, which is another important feature. Extruded aluminium is often fabricated into sections of play equipment but it is just as useful for forming things like the rungs of a set of step ladders, for example.
Lightweight
One of the key properties of aluminium is that it has a high strength-to-weight ratio. This means that it is easy to handle in the workshops of almost all metal fabricators with no expensive lifting equipment being required. It also makes it an ideal covering for anything that is designed to be light, such as the fuselage of model aircraft or even the internal components of a racing car.
Joining
As well as being easy to cut to shape, aluminium offers metal fabricators another helpful property — it is also easy to weld. Spot welds can fix two or more sections of aluminium together without much fuss. Therefore, you don't need to be an expert in arc welding to be able to use this material. Indeed, it is one of the first metals that many welders train on.
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