Advantages of Using Aluminum for Your Projects
With its versatility, strength, and other remarkable properties, aluminum is being more and more recognized and widely used across a range of different industry types. Used in construction, industrial, or even commercial projects, it offers advantages that can be utilized in a variety of things. It is quickly turning out to be the metal of choice for everyone.
Aluminum has been greatly used for over a hundred years, tried and tested with different fabricating and manufacturing processes to suit a whole variety of uses. With these processes, it can also supply more complex designs to choose from, meeting the requirements of each project. Its construction-friendly properties makes it a great material even for home projects, particularly with fixtures such as doors and windows. The aluminum can also be used in external facades, roofs and walls, staircases, railings, and other several applications.
The intrinsic properties of aluminum make it an efficient and effective material for building. Its advantages including structural strength, lightweightness, corrosion-resistance, and environmental-friendliness, proves that it is really a great choice of metal. In this article, these advantages will be delved into a more detailed explanation. Read on to learn more.
Structural Strength
In choosing the right material for your construction projects, of course, you will most likely want the toughest one. The initial factor you will most possibly be considering is how strong and durable the material would be. In that case, aluminum might be the proper choice. Stronger and more durable than other construction materials, aluminum’s structural strength is what makes it prominent in construction applications.
Aluminum is a material that ensures optimal performance that lasts for a very long time. It outperforms other mediums for construction with its strength and durability. With the different manufacturing, fabricating, and metalworking processes that are accessible, aluminum can be reshaped depending on its purpose. There may be construction projects that require forming the aluminum product into different shapes, sizes, and profiles.
The material is used in hundreds of everyday applications that requires a huge amount of strength and durability. From different kinds of transportation vehicles such as planes, trains, buses, trucks, and cars, to even the tallest of skyscrapers, aluminum is evident to be an ideal and powerful construction material.
Lightweight
While the strength of aluminum is comparable to that of steel, it just weighs about a third of steel. Which is why when compared to any other construction material, aluminum is probably the lightest. This factor makes it easier for aluminum to be easier and cheaper to transport than most other metals.
Aluminum is an effective material for your projects because it remains as light as it was in its initial form. When used in building constructions, it does not cause the entire building to be too heavy. Some parts of your project that are usually made with steel can use aluminum as an alternative. These parts can be made thicker to secure its strength, while the total weight is decreased. Additionally, when used as a material for vehicles, it significantly reduces the weight of the car, while still maintaining stability and load capacity.
In choosing the materials suitable for your construction projects, do not compromise the quality of metal you use, just to comply with your project’s weight specification. Aluminum is ideal for delivering a better outcome, even without the excess weight of steel on your structure.
Resistant to Corrosion
A part of the reasons why aluminum is a prominent material in various industries is its ability to protect itself from corrosion. Corrosion is the usual issue for most metals. No matter how strong they are, high chances of corrosion when exposed to oxygen in the air is most likely to happen. However, for aluminum, it naturally generates a thin protective coating when it comes into contact with an oxidizing environment. This makes it ideal to use as a protective external material. It ensures that it is corrosion-resistant and can protect itself from other effects of outdoor air that might damage a structure. But then, if the aluminum is damaged, its thin protective layer can restore itself in an instant. This is especially if the damaged area is re-exposed to oxygen. Its reaction to this will form more oxidation layer.
This advantage of aluminum makes it perfect for using it in any projects available. And additionally, when you have your aluminum coated and get surface treatment such as painting or anodizing, it can improve its overall corrosion resistance even more.
Environmentally-Friendly
The main reason why aluminum is considered as an environmentally-friendly material is because it can be recycled over and over again. It is one of the most sustainable materials used in construction. It can be reused and recycled while still retaining its initial properties. Aluminum can be melted down, reshaped, and reprocessed as new products, and can create an even higher quality of aluminum, with just a little amount of energy.
Since aluminum does not lose any of the physical properties when recycled, it has been considered as a reliable material for any construction projects that requires sustainability without sacrificing durability. An aluminum would still be an aluminum even if it would undergo different processes. This makes it a much more cost-effective source material too. In addition, they could be smelted down, reused in other applications, and recycled, without creating any waste.
This is a great advantage of using aluminum as it is not only cost-effective, but is not that harmful for the environment as well.
Key Takeaway
When you choose a material for your projects, you need to make sure that it has a lasting impact with regards to its strength, durability, and the entire quality of the project outcome. It is also important to remember that no construction material is unflawed, and all has limited structural capabilities. You just have to make use of all the benefits it can offer. And given the aluminum advantages — its structural strength, lightweightness, corrosion-resistance, and environmentally-friendly factors, your project will most likely be firm and long-lasting. Using aluminum will provide you with endless possibilities for your construction, industrial, and commercial projects.
