Original subtitles

- [Narrator] It's the third most abundant metal on earth,

once considered so rare and precious,

it was used to crown the Washington Monument.

Today it transports us, protects us,

and can even help unlock the secrets of the universe.

- If you look around anywhere,

you will see it being applied in just about everything we do.

- [Narrator] Can you imagine a world without aluminum?

Find out on Modern Marvels.

[upbeat electronic music]

There's a good reason

the world devours 165,000 tons of aluminum every day,

and why the United States alone

gobbles almost 9 billion pounds a year.

[upbeat music]

Modern civilization couldn't survive without it.

This strong, lightweight,

flexible rustproof wonder is everywhere.

An integral part of the planes we fly,

cars we drive, the structures of our cities,

and the power lines carrying electricity to our homes.

But most know it best when aluminum is no thicker

than a human hair.

It's found this way in over 95% of households,

as aluminum foil.

[upbeat music]

Impervious to light, air and moisture.

It's perfect for preparing and preserving food.

- There's nothing better for a barrier.

Moisture protection, freshness,

the dead full characteristics

that we use it to wrap our products,

it's just, there's nothing better.

- [Narrator] But how does it get so thin?

And why is it shiny on one side and dull on the other?

The Reynolds Factory in Richmond, Virginia,

maker of 340,000 pounds of aluminum foil every day,

holds the answers.

The aluminum arrives by rail car,

as massive 32,000 pound coils.

- Once we receive the coils,

they're unloaded off the rail car,

we go into annealing ovens.

The annealing process helps soften the metal

so that we can further reduce it

to the gauge and thickness that most people see

in our standard Reynolds wrap products.

- [Narrator] Each sheet is four and a half thousandths

of an inch thick.

About the same as a compact disc.

Thinning the softened sheet is a job for the rolling mills.

Since the pressure they exert on the aluminum could create

sparks and ignite fires,

a cooling lubricant douses the sheet as it enters.

Inside the mill,

the sheet passes between a pair of powered spinning rollers.

Larger non-powered rollers positioned above and below them

apply even pressure,

helping them flatten the sheet in a uniform manner.

One pass through the mill reduces the sheet thickness

by half.

It's also getting a lot longer

as the 300,000 yard long coiled sheet,

makes six passes through three different rolling mills.

- When it finishes on our finishing mill,

it's about 240 miles long

because we've reduced it and increased the length.

- [Narrator] This final pass through the finishing mill

holds the secret to why aluminum foil is shiny on one side,

but not the other.

- So in order to support the metal and ensure

we can pull it through the mill, we double pass it.

We have two sheets of metal running through the mill

at the same time.

- [Narrator] Since the outer sides of each sheet contact,

the highly polished lubricated roller surface,

they emerge shiny.

And since the inner sides touch only each other,

they emerge with a matte finish.

After the double foil exits,

each single layer is only 6.4 ten thousandths

of an inch thick, six times thinner than a sheet

of standard copier paper.

- In this process, we're separating the metal

from the double sheet to single sheet.

The separation occurs at this point.

One sheet is going to the upper roll,

the other sheet to the lower roll.

- [Narrator] As the sheets of foil separate,

a set of knives behind this metal housing

slices the rolls into six equal divisions

measuring 12 inches across.

Next, mechanical arms break apart the divisions.

Now the foil is at its final thickness and width.

Shortening each coil to the standard length

happens at the packing facility.

The coil runs through a spooler

that cuts each sheet and wraps it around a fiber core

300 times per minute.

Machines then guide the cores into cartons.

And the foil is ready to wrap food

for the fridge, freezer or grill all around the world.

But does it matter which side faces in

and which side faces out?

- Actually, it makes no difference

whether you use the dull versus the shiny side of the foil.

They both are gonna perform the same for cooking or freezing

or storing with foil.

[upbeat music]

- [Narrator] Aluminum foils roots stretch back

over eight decades,

when metals other than aluminum

were preserving the goods

that fed our sweet tooths and smoking habits.

- It got its origins way back in about the 1920s.

When Reynolds Metals Company was in the business

of producing lead and tin foil

that was used in cigarette packaging.

And they started wondering if possibly

this protective foil

could be made better and more economically

by using the new metal called aluminum.

- [Narrator] Aluminum arrived for home use in 1947.

Touted as a new kitchen miracle,

Reynolds Wrap debuted as a 25 foot long, 12 inch wide roll

packaged in pink and silver.

- Well, aluminum foil as a household foil

was never made from lead or tin.

And it's kind of interesting that people still refer to it

sometimes as tin foil today.

- [Narrator] But where does the aluminum used

to make foil and a million other things come from?

It's right beneath our feet.

Beckoning to miners is the most abundant metal

in the Earth's crust.

Out of every 1 million atoms in the ground,

82,000 are aluminum.

But pure aluminum doesn't exist on its own in nature.

It can be found locked away in reddish deposits

of bauxite ore.

The richest deposits of the ore exist in Australia,

Brazil,

Russia,

and China.

A refining process will begin to extract

the stubborn aluminum.

A caustic soda digests the ore-rich dirt

into a liquid and allows the separation of its components.

Resulting white residue is then dried into a white powder.

A compound called aluminum oxide or alumina.

This is the stuff from which aluminum is made.

The trick now is isolating the aluminum from the oxygen.

To pull that off you need to transport

the alumina to a production facility.

Like the one ALCOA operates here near Evansville, Indiana.

- We receive a barge every day into our ore dock.

It's got roughly 3.2 million pounds of alumina on it,

and we vacuum it out of the barge.

It's basically like a large vacuum cleaner

that you'd use at home.

- [Narrator] The vacuum suctions about 300 tons per hour,

emptying the barge in 10 hours

and depositing the powder onto conveyor belts.

- Actually there's no smell to it at all.

It's got a real granular feel to it.

It's a little more coarse than what talcum powder is,

more like salt.

[upbeat rock music]

- [Narrator] Inside the 120 acre mega complex,

750 pots await the powder.

Each contains a molten salt bath.

Every two minutes,

an overhead feeder dumps seven pounds into one of the pots.

As the powder begins to melt,

the most critical component to isolating

the aluminum takes charge.

Electricity, and lots of it.

The onsite coal plant delivers enough juice

to the pots to power 300,000 homes.

The electricity flows through the copper rods connected

to steel blocks suspended in a pot salt bath.

The aluminum oxide molecules filling the bath

contain two aluminum atoms and three oxygen atoms.

The electric current breaks the bond

and forces the atoms apart.

- And in that process,

you're making liquid metal and the metal

is a little bit denser than the bath.

It settles to the bottom of the pot.

And then carbon oxide bubbles are given off.

- [Narrator] But the process isn't over yet,

workers then have to extract the molten aluminum

from the pots and turn it into a solid.

- Crews literally vacuum the metal out in a process

we call tapping.

They use a large container and it's got a spout on it.

We apply air to it and create a vacuum

and suck the metal outta the bottom of the pot.

- [Narrator] Forklifts then transport the crucibles

to a holding furnace,

where cranes lift and spill out the molten metal.

Then channels into casting chambers,

where it will solidify.

These holding monoliths are destined

to become everything from beer cans,

to sauce pans, to siding on your house.

But if you thought aluminum is the only secret

to all your typical household items, think again.

- [Narrator] Aluminum, from the kitchen to cans,

it's many uses have become an integral

part of our daily lives.

Not bad for a metal that's definitely

the new kid on the block.

- Well, the one thing to keep in mind is that

aluminum is a fairly new metal.

Bronze, lead, iron, copper have been around for centuries.

Aluminum was first actually discovered as an element

by chemist Sir Davy in 1808.

- [Narrator] But discovering this unique metal

was one thing.

Divorcing it from its ore compound was another.

Throughout most of the 19th century,

a variety of chemical processes could only generate

impure samples in minute quantities.

Aluminum was so rare,

it was nearly twice as expensive as gold.

In the 1880s, when advances in processing

helped reduce its price,

it was the fitting choice for engineers

completing construction of the Washington Monument,

who sought a precious capstone for their master work.

The aluminum pyramid they placed atop the marble spire

weighed 100 ounces.

At the time, the largest piece of aluminum ever cast.

Two years later in 1886,

came the discovery that made aluminum accessible

and inexpensive.

Two scientists working independently,

Frenchman Paul Aru and American Charles Martin Hall,

hit upon the chemical electric extraction process

still in use today.

Aluminum's market price plummeted

to less than a dollar per pound.

The breakthrough unshackled the metal

and triggered the rise of revolutionary new industries.

Today, one of those industries crafts the aluminum

that helps lift this Goliath double-decker jet.

The Airbus A380

is the largest commercial aircraft in the world.

It stretches 10 feet longer and towers 16 feet taller

than a Boeing 747.

It weighs in at a whopping 1.2 million pounds.

Unlike most commercial aircraft,

65% of that bulk is aluminum.

It's a no-brainer that aluminum's light weight

makes it a perfect construction material for planes.

But more important is its flexibility.

- Aluminum is ideally suited for flying

more than any other material.

It's important that the material be able to withstand,

and give-and-take in those pressurizations

and depressurizations that occur

thousands of times over the life cycle of an airplane.

- [Narrator] The wings of the A380, like any airplane

suffer constant stress.

On the ground, they sag from their own weight.

In the sky, the air flow required for lift

pushes the wings in the opposite direction.

The A380's pliable wings span over 260 feet

and are comprised of the largest pieces of aluminum

on the plane.

10 separate sheets case the surface of each wing.

Five on top and five underneath.

They cover a series of aluminum ribs and spars,

which form the skeleton needed

to support the wings' length.

The wingskins for the A380

are among the thousands of aluminum parts made here,

at ALCOA's Davenport Worksmill in Iowa.

The plant is large enough to contain a golf course,

Mill workers craft wing sections up to 112 feet long

and weighing over 11,000 pounds.

They begin with enormous 18 inch thick, 70 inch wide

aluminum alloy blocks.

The task of transforming each into a wingskin

begins with this beastly rolling mill,

measuring over 18 feet across, the widest in the world.

Just like the raw sheets that become aluminum foil,

the metal will get thinner and thinner

and longer and longer.

Until it is about one inch thick.

Saws then cut each flattened plate to various shapes

depending on where they'll be positioned on the wing.

Finally, twin milling heads refine and taper the pieces

as necessary by skinning the plate surface.

- We use 30 inch diameter cutter.

It will generate this machine pattern

on here that looks like swirls.

- [Narrator] The completed wing skins are now for assembly

by Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers.

[plane engine roaring]

Flying with anything but aluminum

seems almost inconceivable today.

Yet plane making pioneers fashioned

the bodies of their crafts out of fabric covered wood.

But wood can rot and splinter.

Seeking a more durable material following World War I,

German designer, Hugo Yonkers was among the first

to build planes sheathed in aluminum alloy.

[plane engine roaring]

In 1935, the Douglas DC-3

and its all aluminum body,

ushered in the age of commercial flight.

Sporting longer and larger wings than its predecessors,

it could fly higher and faster.

It could also carry more fuel.

Minimizing refueling stops.

The duration of a coast to coast flight fell

from an agonizing 26 hours

to less than 18.

And today, aluminum carries commercial travelers

through the air for more than 800 billion miles every year.

But planes aren't the only form of transportation

revolutionized by aluminum.

Our favorite four-wheelers contain over 500 pounds of it.

- [Narrator] For over 100 years,

aluminum has been used to manufacture automobiles.

In fact, Carl Benz,

who co-founded the world famous Mercedes-Benz company,

constructed the world's first aluminum car engine in 1901.

It's estimated that car companies

use 20% of the aluminum mined each year.

And proportionally less and less steel.

Why?

Well, for starters, it saves gas.

- Aluminum is significantly lighter than steel

and it gives you somewhere between

30 and 50% mass reduction compared to steel.

And the general ratio is if you take 10% of the mass out

of a vehicle,

you can get up to about 8% of improvement in fuel economy.

[upbeat music]

- [Narrator] Auto makers prefer aluminum

because it's easier to melt and to shape.

That's a big plus when it comes to casting

the parts for the engine

that represents much of a car's weight.

- What we've done here is take two crucibles.

We've filled one with aluminum

and the other one with chunks of steel.

We put both of these crucibles in a furnace

and we set the furnace at 800 degrees centigrade.

If you can see that the aluminum is melted.

And the steel is still chunks of steel

that are sitting there,

maybe a bit red-hot, but nevertheless not melted.

This is one of the most critical

and important attributes of aluminum, that it can melt

at low temperatures.

So we can melt it and pour into cavities

to make castings.

- [Narrator] While this fluid wonder metal

is helping cars lose weight under their hoods,

it's also helping them get their bodies into shape.

- It also allows you to make a lot of shapes

that you couldn't make otherwise.

- [Narrator] One way GM shapes its aluminum parts

is with water,

in a process known as hydroforming.

- The reason we tube hydroform

is we're able to form it in any particular shape

that we need it without welding sections together.

The hydroforming process allows us to make one part

and is proven to be higher durability

than you get out of two pieces welded together.

[upbeat music]

- [Narrator] The water shaped tubes will become

part of the frame of a Corvette.

Once a tube enters the die,

high capacity pumps flood it with up to a hundred

gallons of water.

The resulting pressure helps the aluminum form

into the precise shapes of the die.

It's all over in less than two minutes.

- I'm sitting in the Corvette body structure

that contains aluminum hydroformed rails.

These aluminum rails replaced steel rails

that serve the same function, but were heavier.

[car engine roaring]

This enables us to produce a Corvette that is lighter

and has better zero-to-60 time

than you would get with the steel version.

[car engine roaring]

- [Narrator] The pressure to shape aluminum car parts

isn't restricted to water.

You can also use air with what is known as QPF.

- It stands for Quick Plastic Forming,

which is not plastic,

we're working with aluminum,

but we take aluminum to an elevated temperature state

in order to form parts and shapes

that we can't normally form.

In this operation, we're making the Cadillac STS trunk lid.

The inner panel is just now coming out of the press,

fully formed.

What's coming in is the preheated aluminum sheet.

As soon as that die gets closed,

we use air pressure to force that aluminum up against that

steel die cavity that gives us our shape.

[inquisitive music]

- [Narrator] QPF technology fashioned aluminum body panels

for GM's fuel cell powered concept car,

the Sequel.

Whether powered by hydrogen, battery, or hybrid engines,

future vehicles must become lighter

than ever to be competitive.

- When you put a lot of money into the power train

like you need to do in those vehicles,

it doesn't make sense to pull around a steel cage.

A wood bat is the foundation of professional baseball.

It has been since before the days of the Babe.

To maintain that tradition, pro players

can't use anything else.

[aluminum bat pings]

But aspiring pros aren't required to use wood.

In fact, more than 90% of all bats sold today

are made not from wood, but aluminum.

The reasons are obvious.

First, bats made from aluminum are lighter, enabling

players to generate more bat speed as they swing.

But unlike wood,

aluminum can be strategically balanced along

the length of a bat,

Allowing it to channel vibrations

and transfer energy more efficiently.

As a result, on contact,

baseballs fly up to 20 feet farther.

And the bat's sweet spot, the ideal hit zone, is larger.

They debuted at the collegiate level in 1974

and forever altered the nature of the game.

- By 1976, the batting averages

for NCAA had climbed 30 points.

So there was a big difference in terms of

just simply putting the ball in play.

[bat pings]

- [Narrator] The Anderson Bat Company

in Orange County, California,

one of the few remaining American bat makers,

crafts 300 aluminum bats every day.

[bat pings]

The simple shape of the aluminum bat

masks the precise science behind its creation.

- The aluminum has the strength to weight ratio

that is probably the most advantageous

of any of the metals.

[upbeat funky music]

- [Narrator] Anderson makes its top of the line bat

from an aluminum alloy with a touch of zinc.

It adds toughness and durability.

The process begins with 17 foot long, hollow aluminum tubes.

[saw whirring]

An operator saws the tubes to lengths ranging

from 22 to 26 inches,

depending on the final bat model.

Then it's up to a machine called the Rotary Swager,

to reshape each tube into a precisely molded

and balanced bat.

The aluminum fits over a mandrill bar,

as it enters the swager between a twin pair of dies.

As the taper die halves rotate, they open out.

A series of spinning rollers positioned around the perimeter,

shove the dies back and close them.

The rotation opens and closes the dies 1500 times

per minute.

As the aluminum feeds into the swager,

it's forced to take the shape of the narrowing die cavity.

The aluminum needs three passes through the Rotary Swager.

Each pass thins the wall and elongates the tube.

A final pass tapers the handle.

- This is the cut stock.

This is what you saw earlier and it's 26 inches long.

This one is a first pass.

It's the thinning stage of it.

This is a second thinning stage.

And you can see the as, as we go and thin,

the tube gets longer.

And then this is the final pass.

And while this is 26, this is 41 inches long.

- [Narrator] These bats may now be expertly shaped

and balanced,

but before they can punish baseballs,

they have to be hardened.

[upbeat funky music]

This happens just a few miles away

at a facility where a hot bath

waits to heat treat the aluminum.

The bath doesn't hold hot water,

but rather sodium nitrate.

Unlike water, the salt solution won't corrode the aluminum.

- Heat treat is a two step process,

an elevated temperature for a certain amount of time.

And then a rapid cooling called a quench.

It's kind of exciting, because you go from this salt bath

to a water tank and you have to do it with less

than 15 seconds.

- [Narrator] The rapid cooling following the elevated

temperature soak creates microscopic particles

in the aluminum,

Which strengthen the metal.

After the bats bake in an oven to preserve their hardness

and shape, an inspector checks each one to see

if it's a hit or an error.

- What we're looking for is a range.

If it's too hard, the aluminum can crack.

And if it's too soft, obviously it will dent.

- [Narrator] After the inspection,

workers at another facility add the graphics and color.

And workers back at Anderson Bat Company

apply the finishing touches.

An end on the handle, cap.

And the grip.

How does this finely crafted aluminum bat

compare to one made of wood?

- What we're measuring is the velocity of the ball

off of the bat from the tee.

And the radar gun actually picks up the very

fastest point of the ball between the tee and the gun.

And we're gonna start with the wood bat.

[bat cracks]

Okay. That's 86 miles an hour.

[bat cracks]

85.

[giggles]

- [Narrator] And now the aluminum bat.

[bat pings]

- 91.

[bat pings]

91, wow.

- If, say this point right here is my ideal hit zone,

where I'm gonna get my best performance,

with an aluminum bat, the size of that hit zone

is gonna be larger than with the wood bat.

So say the wood bat is gonna be the size of a baseball,

your aluminum bat's gonna be double that.

It's gonna be the size of two baseballs.

So the chances of me getting better performance

when I mis-hit a bat is gonna increase as opposed

to using a wood bat.

[cheerful organ music]

- [Narrator] Will aluminum bats ever graduate

from college to the pros?

Don't hold your breath.

- Baseball is a very traditional sport

and wood, the crack of the bat and all of that is very much

a part of the fabric of baseball.

At the same time,

if you were to put aluminum bat in the hands

of professional players,

you would have to change all of records.

They'd have to be asterisked.

- [Narrator] Ball players aren't the only ones reaching

new heights with aluminum.

- [Narrator] A new telescope called the Giant Magellan,

the world's largest, is planned to begin peering skyward

from an observatory in Chile,

sometime in the next few years.

A cluster of seven mirrors more than 80 feet in diameter,

will redirect so much light from the heavens

to astronomers' eyes.

It will produce images up to 10 times sharper

than the Hubble Space Telescope.

It will allow astronomers to study newly discovered

black holes, stars, and galaxies.

But the Giant Magellan wouldn't see anything,

without aluminum coating each mirror.

Your mirror at home uses a layer of silver,

and it's actually slightly more reflective than aluminum.

But astronomers use aluminum for their telescopes

because it's more durable and less expensive to maintain.

Making aluminum coated mirrors for telescopes

isn't as simple as dipping a brush in buckets

of aluminum paint and slapping it on glass.

Just ask the scientists

at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The setting for the transformation of glass

into mirror is a vacuum chamber.

- [Felix] The process of coating the mirror

demands that the environment not be contaminated.

We actually evacuate most of the air out of the chamber.

So the cleaner the chamber is,

the cleaner the coating is going to be.

- [Narrator] With the glass in place,

it's time to add the aluminum.

- These staples are 99.999 pure aluminum.

We use these as the base for the aluminum coatings.

We put them by hand on the tungsten filaments

to prepare for the coating process.

- [Narrator] The lid lowers, sealing the chamber,

and a pump removes virtually all the air.

An electric current heats the filaments,

melting the staples and removing any lingering impurities

in the aluminum.

- Once the aluminum is melted,

this is the way it looks on the filament.

So you can see that the aluminum

is no longer a hard staple,

but it's actually wetted along the coils of the filament.

- [Narrator] Next, a second stronger electric current

passes through the filaments.

In a blinding flash, the aluminum vaporizes,

the hot aluminum gas rises and condenses

on the cooler glass surface.

The deposited layer is 1500 times thinner than a human hair.

But as shiny as the aluminum coating is,

it faces a host of enemies.

- Over time, moisture and pollen

and bugs and things like that will get on

the optical surfaces.

And they'll start etching into the aluminum

and they degrade the coating over time.

- [Narrator] The only way to restore

an aluminum coated mirror

is to remove the corrupted coating

and replace it with a fresh one.

It's a major event for observatories

and a necessity about every two years.

First, technicians must remove the mirror

from the telescope's housing.

Stripping off the old coating starts with soap and water.

Chemical solvents then eat away the aluminum coating

to reveal the underlying glass base.

Next, paper towels are used to clean and dry the glass

before a vacuum chamber lowers into place

and deposits the shiny aluminum.

Bugs and dirt aren't a worry for the orbiting, 95 inch,

aluminum coated mirror on the Hubble.

But NASA engineers have to guard it against

an entirely different threat.

- You go up in space and you have extreme differentials.

If it's facing the sun,

if it's night time, you're talking hundreds

of degrees in variation

and that'll change the contour of the mirror.

- [Narrator] Trying to lick the problem,

NASA scientists have developed a new kind of aluminum mirror

without a glass base.

- You can use the aluminum to make

your mirror and the mounting structure

all out of the same material.

If the temperature changes,

then your mirror and your mounting structure,

then shrinks or expands by the same amount.

So you don't get distortions and stresses that will twist

the mirror and destroy its imaging properties.

- [Narrator] The challenge for NASA's engineers

is to turn pure aluminum discs like this one into mirrors.

A diamond-tipped blade is the answer.

It will dig in just below the surface

and in a uniform slice, begin to smooth the aluminum

to a natural shine.

During the procedure,

a paint thinner solution sprays away debris.

It also cools the diamond tip,

which heats up as it carves into the metal.

And after just two minutes,

A final polishing treatment

will smooth out leftover

microscopic imperfections.

NASA scientists speculate that pure aluminum mirrors

like this could someday replace

the more common aluminum coated glass mirrors.

[rocket engine roaring]

Of course NASA's love affair with aluminum

isn't just limited to mirrors.

- Anything you wanna lift off the surface of the Earth.

You're fighting gravity.

You want to look for materials that very lightweight

and strong and take advantage of other properties.

Reducing them as to take it to orbit,

is a big deal.

Every pound, every ounce counts.

And so aluminum has a perfect combination of many

of the characteristics we look for.

It is very lightweight.

It's malleable, meaning that you can work with it, easier.

It doesn't corrode,

see if you look around anywhere in NASA,

you will see it being applied

in just about everything we do.

- [Narrator] And it's been that way for over five decades.

- It has been one of those materials

that actually have made

many of the things that we're doing now possible.

- [Narrator] As aluminum continues to help us explore

new worlds,

it could also better protect us in extreme weather events.

- [Narrator] There are still few measures to help prevent total

destruction when an extreme weather event arises

in your town.

Tornadoes, in the Midwest and Plains,

reaching 219 miles per hour.

Costing the United States

an average of $2.5 million annually in recovery.

And in Southern, hurricane-prone states,

a category five event like Hurricane Harvey

resulted in approximately $125 billion in damages.

But these homes and buildings may have fared better

had they been clad in another form of aluminum

produced by Canada's Cymat Technologies.

They call it aluminum foam.

Its unique sponge-like structure could prove

to be a lifesaver around the globe.

- [Wayne] The foam basically absorbs the shock wave

so that there isn't such a severe impact.

- [Narrator] Aluminum foams key ingredient

is nothing more than air.

But the real trick to making it isn't injecting

air bubbles and the aluminum.

It's keeping the bubbles intact once they're inside.

- Our material is molten aluminum

with ceramic particles in it.

Those particles stabilize the bubbles,

in other words, stop them from popping.

And a good example of this is if you've ever tried to use

dried cocoa powder and mix it into milk,

and as you're doing it,

you see this froth forming on the surface with,

with the dried cocoa on the bubbles,

the bubbles are stable.

- [Narrator] Cymat begins its production process

by melting down aluminum bars

already containing the ceramic particles.

The furnace holding material spills

a scalding stream into a channel leading

to a receptacle called the foaming box.

Now it's time for the all important air.

Inside the foaming box, a nozzle injects air,

creating bubbles in the molten concoction.

More air creates a less dense and lighter final product.

A propeller at the end of the nozzle

keeps the ceramic particles evenly distributed.

The bubbles rise, and as they reach the surface,

begin to cool and harden.

- When it gets to the top of the foaming box,

it's already starting to solidify.

So it curves up onto the belt and goes into the press.

And that takes a lot of the heat out very quickly

to solidify the cells and give you the solid panel.

[upbeat music]

- [Narrator] The emerging, half-inch-thick panels

measure four by eight feet.

Solid aluminum this size could weigh more than 300 pounds.

But each of these panels weighs only about 30 pounds.

Foamed aluminum can also be injected

into a three dimensional cast.

What looks like a heavy chunk of metal

is actually light enough to float in water.

A view of the casting skeleton shows why.

- In the X-ray machine

we have a part that from the outside looks

like a solid aluminum casting.

We're looking right on the edge of the part.

You can see a dark line here where we're actually

looking down the edge of the casting.

But if I rotate this, you can see the cellular structure.

There's a lot more air there than there is solid material,

but the cellular structure allows it to collapse

and absorb energy.

Imagine each one of these little bubbles is breaking.

These cells is breaking as the,

the part is crushed and there's energy being absorbed by

every one of those walls collapsing.

- One of the applications for this product

is crash boxes in automobiles.

Crash box is the element in a bumper system,

which absorbs the energy in a low impact crash.

We take a normal hollow aluminum extrusion

that might form that crash box.

And we insert aluminum foam inside the product

and then crush it as it would be crushed in a crash.

It does two things,

it absorbs the energy

and it also forces the aluminum extrusion

to create many folds.

And every one of those folds absorbs energy.

- [Narrator] Aluminum foam is just the latest incarnation

of this invaluable metal.

- A world without aluminum, perhaps I'm biased,

but for me, it's unimaginable.

- [Narrator] A century before it helped

carry man to the moon,

Jules Verne hinted at its vast potential,

describing it as having the lightness of silver,

the indestructibility of gold,

the tenacity of iron,

and the likeness of glass.

But even that great visionary couldn't have foreseen

the scope of aluminum's many modern applications.

[plane engine roaring]

But if you thought aluminum is the only secret

to all your typical household items, think again.

Coming up on Modern Marvels,

we'll show you how aluminum is the key to getting this

nearly 1 million pound machine off the ground.

But planes aren't the only form of transportation

revolutionized by aluminum.

Our favorite four-wheelers contain over 500 pounds of it.

Coming up, a machine that owes a lot

to this magnificent metal, your car.

[car engine roaring]

in a different kind of cage, a batting cage.

How do you create a baseball bat

that beats the competition?

Here's a hint, give it one outrageously hot bath.

They'd have to be asterisked.

- [Narrator] Ball players aren't the only ones reaching

new heights with aluminum.

Coming up.

Think aluminum is only used for things here on earth?

Not quite,

turns out we needed to gaze into the deepest

reaches of the universe.

- [Narrator] As aluminum continues to help us explore

new worlds,

it could also better protect us in extreme weather events.

Coming up, how this spongy wonder

could save your most precious belongings.

And your life.

- [Narrator] We now return to Modern Marvels.

A wood bat is the foundation of professional baseball.