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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    SA
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    1,649

    Default Game changer - very interesting ABC news article

    Looks like aluminium (or aluminum as the yanks like to call it) may be on the way out.

    'Poisoned' alloy the metal of the future › News in Science (ABC Science)

    Just don't lick your car engine block.

    Rob

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Canberra
    Posts
    490

    Default

    OMG - there's arsenic in it, we can't have that! Won't someone please think of the children!!!one

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Southern Highlands NSW
    Posts
    1,894

    Default

    Harold Willis, 1920s motorcycle racer coined descriptive and funny names for things.
    He called magnesium alloy "electrified dirt", probably after Elektron, a Mg alloy brand.
    We call camshafts "knockers" and "double knockers" because of him.

    Jordan

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    South Australia
    Posts
    46

    Default

    VW have already used Magnesium in their engines. Childhood memories of scraping it off and lighting up the back yard at night with home made mini magnesium flares. Now days kids think playing with computer games is more fun

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    SA
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    Default

    The trouble with the old style magnesium as I understand it, is that it can get minute stress fractures which then corrode, and although all looks well, it's not safe.

    I read an article which showed this to good effect when some F1 racing car driver took a very rare and expensive classic Jag museum race car from the 1980 's (?) out for a demonstration run on a circuit in the UK and had only got it up to about 90 MPH and the wheels literally fell to pieces. The car went off the track and was severely damaged. The driver was lucky to get out in one piece.

    But that's the trouble with old magnesium. It looks OK but it can be weak as.

    I believe magnesium wheels are not allowed by road authorities for this reason, and current alloy wheels are all aluminium based.

    Rob
    The worst that can happen is you will fail.
    But at least you tried.



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