Magnesium Alloy Laptops?

[MacRumors]

Digitimes claims (http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article.asp?datePublish=2003/08/25&pages=07&seq=30) that the notebook industry is increasingly adopting Magnesium alloy chassis. In 2003, orders are expected to double.

They mention Apple as one of the companies increasing their orders for Magnesium alloy. Apple currently uses a Magnesium frame in their iBook laptop.

Of interest, the original NeXT cube was built out of cast magnesium... which the editor of NeXTWorld magazine finally got a chance to set ablaze (http://web.thock.com/cubefire.htm) in 1991.

[arn]

since all the powerbooks are made about of aluminum or titanium allows...

don't know if I'd put too much stock into this.

[edit: I was corrected below]

arn

[kylos]

I believe the ibook has a magnesium substructure. Can't remember where I heard this (Apple website discussing strength and durability of ibook? or at xlr8yourmac when I was reading up on how to replace my hd?), but I'm pretty sure that this is what they're referring to. It's probably also used in the pb's and the titanium and alu. are for the shells only.

Edit:
Heh. From the Apple website in the sidebar for the iBook.
Space-age materials
The iBook was designed with durability in mind. That’s why it’s made of ultratough polycarbonate plastic — the same material used in bulletproof glass — and has an internal magnesium frame for added strength.

[Chaszmyr]

The iBook indeed does have a Magnesium structure


Edit: i guess he editted his post which was posted before mine lol

[arn]

ah - cool. thanks for the info. ;)

arn

[Steamboatwillie]

I'm probably wrong but if I recall my chemistry classes in high school I believe that Magnesium is highly combustible...

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Mr. Anderson]

Magnesium in its pure form is combustible, but not the alloys. The unique attribute that this has is that it can be die cast just like plastic, but doesn't have the recycling issues and greater strength while still being lightweight.

There has been a greater push in using Mg Alloys in almost every industry - cars, cameras, electronics, etc.

But a quick search on the web failed to find out what the alloy is composed of aside from magnesium. Any chemists out there know?

D

[Nemesis]

Magnesium, alluminium, titanium .. they're all ok, but I think that the future is in Duretanium.
It's extremely lightweight, stiff, firm, even laser beam hardly can scratch it, and it is used in construction of Star Trek's spaceships too :-)
The only thing we're missing in such a laptop is good power supply, hopefuly made by matter and antimatter fusion, controlled by crystals of dillithium (which is a good inhibitor of nuclear reactions). Such a Powerbook could run for years without recharging (which means, adding new antimatter containers).
:D

[Mr. Anderson]

Ok, I found out more about the Magnesium alloys - looks like there could be 100s or scores of 100s of ASTM certified alloys.

http://www.key-to-metals.com/Article78.htm

There seem to be a few elements that can be used in the alloys - aluminum, rare earth, thorium, zirconium, manganese, silver, silicon, tin and zinc. And I'd wager the combinations along with percentages are almost infinite.

Cool stuff!

D

[coumerelli]

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
Magnesium in its pure form is combustible, but not the alloys. The unique attribute that this has is that it can be die cast just like plastic, but doesn't have the recycling issues and greater strength while still being lightweight.

There has been a greater push in using Mg Alloys in almost every industry - cars, cameras, electronics, etc.

But a quick search on the web failed to find out what the alloy is composed of aside from magnesium. Any chemists out there know?

D

Well, I'm not a chemist, and ...no, I don't know. :D ;)

But, I'll keep my eye out on this thread, 'cuz these are the things I like to know...little tidbits of useless knowledge.

[bousozoku]

Some of you may remember from the early days of the IBM PC that there was a magnesium alloy encased laptop computer--the Grid PC. If I remember correctly, it also had a lightweight plasma display.

Another use for magnesium used to be car wheels. The magnesium was used in pure form to create mag wheels. After some terrible accidents, they added a couple of other metals to keep them safe from combustion and they became alloys. It seems to me that sodium and alumi were used to stabilise things.

[wizard]

Magnesium is burnable when in a form that easly oxidies. For example: at one time you could buy survival fire starting gear that consisted of a bar of manesium and a scraper. You would scrap off some thin shavings to start a fire with. The material is far less flammable in its final manufacture form. The really bad thing is that magnesium fires can not be put out with water - water actually supports a magnesium fire.

Magnesium is a great material in its final form, you would probally not want to work in a factory where it is used in the production process though. Anything that Apple ac do to increase the strength and robustness of its PCs is a good thin in my view, so I'm really hoping that this is a positive sign.

thanks
dave


Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
Magnesium in its pure form is combustible, but not the alloys. The unique attribute that this has is that it can be die cast just like plastic, but doesn't have the recycling issues and greater strength while still being lightweight.

There has been a greater push in using Mg Alloys in almost every industry - cars, cameras, electronics, etc.

But a quick search on the web failed to find out what the alloy is composed of aside from magnesium. Any chemists out there know?

D

[ewinemiller]

I use to have a Lawnboy lawn mower from the early 70s with a magnesium alloy deck. The thing was great, very light, even the wife could pick it up and toss it into the truck of the car.

[patrick0brien]

-All

Let's not get incredibly excited about this. "Aircraft Grade" Aluminum is actually an alloy with Magnesium. Otherwise the metal wouldn't be too useful as it would be very malleable.

Remember, Magnesium is very brittle. So combiling the malleability of Aluminum with the Brittlness and light weight of Magnesium, you get a very strong and light, formable metal.

I'm no metallurgist, but I think the ratio is 95% Aluminum, 5% Magnesium.

[marcsiry]

Originally posted by Steamboatwillie
I'm probably wrong but if I recall my chemistry classes in high school I believe that Magnesium is highly combustible...

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Read the linked article for an insight into Mag's combustibility in processed form. The author had to bring the case to a facility specially constructed for burning things... and they were still barely able to get it going (they needed to use another case for "kindling").

[legion]

All metal...

First off, magnesium is not expensive as the post from the "NeXT burner" states. Second, it has to be an alloy because magnesium is very malleable (making it a poor choice for any structure in its pure form-- this is much like titanium which is very brittle in its pure form.) The only reason magnesium or titanium can be expensive is the alloying and casting process can be expensive (but for instance, Ti is one of the most abundant materials on earth and easy enough to mine from its core.) And finally, IBM has been using magnesium as its framing structure for laptops and was oddly amiss from the Digitimes listing.

(the use of magnesium, aluminium, and titanium was a major topic of discussion growing up with my father being the metallurgist who developed the technique to strengthen Al for use as a framing structure that he developed in part for the defense dept and then later migrated the tech to ALCOA for use in space-frames (the Audi A8 was one of the first to use this in consumer apps))

[Bruja]

Originally posted by Nemesis
Magnesium, alluminium, titanium .. they're all ok, but I think that the future is in Duretanium.
It's extremely lightweight, stiff, firm, even laser beam hardly can scratch it, and it is used in construction of Star Trek's spaceships too :-)
The only thing we're missing in such a laptop is good power supply, hopefuly made by matter and antimatter fusion, controlled by crystals of dillithium (which is a good inhibitor of nuclear reactions). Such a Powerbook could run for years without recharging (which means, adding new antimatter containers).
:D Does this mean that the sceen would be made out of Transparent Aluminum?? :cool:

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by patrick0brien


I'm no metallurgist, but I think the ratio is 95% Aluminum, 5% Magnesium.

From what I found, it looks like the ratios are reversed. One of the more popular alloys being with aluminum and zinc at 9% and 1% respectively.

D

[daRAT]

From what I remember in my Navy training, magnesium, when burning explodes when water is put on it.

Sand, or another dry agent needs to be used when putting out a mag fire ;]

Just thought I'd toss that out, incase your iBook burst into flames :]

heh heh

[smadness]

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
Magnesium in its pure form is combustible, but not the alloys. The unique attribute that this has is that it can be die cast just like plastic, but doesn't have the recycling issues and greater strength while still being lightweight.


As the NeXT burner found out, alloys can be combustible under the right circumstances (i.e. constant flame). Remember the Wallstreet(?) incident where a number of people reported a large jet of flame burning a hole in the bottom of their laptop? What would happen if the same thing occurred, and the flame hit the right spot, igniting some of the magnesium?

[iPC]

One note about casting Magnesium; it has a tendency to be brittle (due to it's porosity). This was a big problem in the after-market for car and motorcycle rims. Hit a curb too hard, and instead of bending the rim, it would break. Many racing organisations still ban Magnesium wheels to this day because of it. From the sound of it, I would guess that if they are using sheets; if so, that would most likely be a stamping process (cheaper and faster to do).

General info regarding magnesium sheet casting can be found here: http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=2074 Includes some nifty info regarding EMI shielding and other unique properties.

[Steamboatwillie]

Originally posted by Bruja
Does this mean that the sceen would be made out of Transparent Aluminum?? :cool:

Ok, to take this joke one step further...

"Unobtainium" This rolled off the top of my head many years ago when I raced motorcycles. I was in the pit area with the Suzuki engineers (all brainy Japenese folks in white lab coats) to go over my practice laps and the changes I wanted to the bike before my race. There were spectators walking around with pit passes looking at the bikes. One young lad was making comments about my bike to his buddy "Hey, that's the new GSX-R. The frame is machined from some special aluminum" I quickly looked to him and said "Actually it's a prototype machined from ultra rare billet unobtainium" he replied in amazment "Whoa, I've heard of that stuff, it's really expensive"

The white lab coat engineers, who never crack a smile, busted out laughing. They may still be talking about it! Thought I'd share that with you all.

[settledown]

What would a G4 Cube look like if it burned?

Or the blue iMac I'm using right now?

[smadness]

Originally posted by settledown
What would a G4 Cube look like if it burned?

Or the blue iMac I'm using right now?

the blue iMac would probably just melt, since most of it is plastic anyway. The G4 cube would probably just smell like burnt toast. *snicker*

[Powerbook G5]

Don't ever talk about burning a G4 Cube! That's just...wrong.

[Squire]

Originally posted by legion
(the use of magnesium, aluminium, and titanium was a major topic of discussion growing up with my father being the metallurgist who developed the technique to strengthen Al for use as a framing structure that he developed in part for the defense dept and then later migrated the tech to ALCOA for use in space-frames (the Audi A8 was one of the first to use this in consumer apps))

Cool. Doesn't the new Jag have a similar frame?

So, we have Magnesium PPC 7457 G4 iBooks on the way and Aluminum G5 PowerBooks.
I can't wait 'til Tuesday.

Squire

P.S. Readers: If you haven't read the NeXT article, read it. It's hilarious.

[neilt]

magnesium is used in many High Temp applications:
Engine blocks for Porsche's for example (at least on the early ones)

Magnesium is also linked to the worst auto race tragedies ever.
http://members.aol.com/healeypics/lemans.html

82 people killed when a magnesium bodied mercedes cartwheeled on fire into the stands at LeMan in 55.....that is the reason mercede's pulled out of racing for years afterwards.

[neilt]

edited the image to remove some carnage.

[jaedreth]

So you know why the Flaming PB 5300's were flaming. Yep. Magnesium.

What's even worse. Magnesium. Iron Oxide powder (chemical grade) for oxygen fuel. Then add aluminum filings (fine, chemical grade).

Personally, I would be *scared* if Apple made an aluminum case with a magnesium frame. Run the computer with the lid closed in sleep, and put it in a tight handbag, it'll get hot, then take it out, open it up, put fine iron oxide powder under the keyboard, and then plug it into power, play a dvd... Won't explode, but it will burn bad.

Assuming it gets hot enough for the magnesium to catch. And if the magnesium does catch, then it has to get hot enough to burn the iron oxide. Only then would the aluminum ignite.

Sure it's a *long* shot, but if a terrorist bought a normal powerbook and obtained chemical grade iron oxide, then they could make something very bad.

Of course, Apple seems to be moving towards non-removable keyboards (yay!) and if so, that nixes this whole concern, specially if there is absolutely no Iron in any form anywhere on the computer.

Just remember, the Hindenburg wasn't simply burning Hydrogen.

The framework was made of an ally known as duralumin. This allow is mainly aluminum and copper, but with traces of magnesium, manganese, iron, and silicon.

The fabric that they used for the hindenburg was coated in iron oxide, cellulose fuel acetate, powdered aluminum, magnesium, and other things. Magnesium is one of the few exothermics that can set off aluminum and iron oxide, also known as a thermite reaction, and such temperatures can reach 5000 degrees F.

So the moral of the story is: Don't make your airship out of fuel rods, and don't paint your ship with rocket fuel. Oh, and don't make your computers out of flammable or reactive chemicals.

Jaedreth

[mustang_dvs]

Originally posted by Bruja
Does this mean that the sceen would be made out of Transparent Aluminum?? :cool:

Actually, I'd prefer to see the next Powerbooks made out of Adamantium. As an indestructible alloy, you won't have to worry about scratching the surface. Plus, if you live in a secret base in northern Canada, you can melt it down and use it to coat really cool conversation pieces:

http://fp.entertainmentearth.com/AUTOIMAGES/DC21072lg.jpg

[mikecruz]

They are probably made out of a magnesium-aluminum alloy. I belive that's what the top of soda cans are made of. It makes them more rigid than a plain aluminum alloy lid of the same thickness.

-mike

[cb911]

i don't think this is significant news at all... i mean don't all of the Apple notebook range have some sort of magnesium frame holding everything together? if not, then they're probably changing over to magnesium from whatever they're using now.

and if Apple is changing the 15" TiBook over from titanium, then of course they're going to have to increase their order for magnesium alloy.:rolleyes:



or it could be a hint that Apple is working on some new awesomely cool PowerBook G5 enclosure... but i doubt it. :(

[bdiddy]

Oakley's Magnesium Eyewear

-----------------------------------------

"The world's first optical frame to incorporate ultra-lightweight magnesium metal within a ceramic mantle. Liquefied at 1100°F, the performance alloy is injected into precision engineered molds within a timeframe of less than 30 milliseconds. Sealing the metal in a protective ceramic mantle requires a turbine that rotates at 60,000 rpm in order to disperse ceramic polymer nanoparticles. For a secure and comfortable fit, the new frame will include spring-hinge mechanisms, as well as Unobtainium® nosebombs and earsocks. Flex couplers are incorporated at strategic points in the frame geometry, tuning flexibility while retaining structural integrity. The end result is a metal frame that meets the durability requirements of sports professionals while offering all-day comfort by minimizing weight."

[jaedreth]

How much do these mf'ers cost?

Jaedreth

[bdiddy]

Those M'fers cost $225.00 (US)

[Scottgfx]

Originally posted by Steamboatwillie
Ok, to take this joke one step further...

I quickly looked to him and said "Actually it's a prototype machined from ultra rare billet unobtainium" he replied in amazment "Whoa, I've heard of that stuff, it's really expensive"

My brother asked an TV engineer once what the scanner in Sony Betacam video tape machine was made from. He told him it was "Japanizium". :)

[reybart]

I bet this will lead to a new thread that no PB Al , instead magnesium!and all will be craving for it again making speculations to the maxx!:o

[fred_lj]

To those frightened by the thought of Apple using Mg-alloy to construct frames for computers, etc. --- why? Every single professional camera body you see in use is a die-cast magnesium alloy body (the F5 has in addition a titanium viewing prism because it's removable). It caught on very quickly because a product made this way feels secure and professional in a tactile sense that people appreciate and pay money for. And it's cold to the touch! My Coolpix 950 was one of the first digicams to go "all the way" with a Mg-alloy body, and it's still in perfect shape after five years of use.

Don't be afraid people, this stuff isn't new news. Photographers wouldn't use exploding cameras.

[sacrilicious]

Serves those paparazzis right.

[lord_flash]

FWIW my PC laptop is made of magnesium alloy and it hasn't blown up in 3 years, despite its warm processor...

[BenRoethig]

Originally posted by lord_flash
FWIW my PC laptop is made of magnesium alloy and it hasn't blown up in 3 years, despite its warm processor...

Try spilling water on it.

[lord_flash]

No, still fine...

(Must be varnished - I remember the experiment at school too)

[JSRockit]

The Fujitsu S Series has a magnesium case and it is a really attractive laptop. Maybe they will make the outer case of the next iBook out of magnesium.

[frankzeg]

Magnesium alloys are commonly used in a lot of consumer goods - principly because it is readily adaptable to mass production and has low density, reasonable strength and stiffness and has a decent thermal conductivity- which can be important in terms of heat rejection area to environment. Vibe damping is also good.

However Mg alloys are notoriously corrosion sensitive- hence the use of anodizing to create a protective barrier. Under normal usage this will not pose a problem since the anodize is fairly tough. However in a salty atmosphere with a naked surface the Mg alloy will be sacrificed if placed in contact with nearly any other metal- like the steel screws that may be used to hold it to another part. That means it will rust super easily if not protected. Since fasteners tend to create these conditions if removed and reinstalled some sealant is usually applied.
If you took a torch to it and got it hot enough a very impressive fire would result- and indeed adding water would not be good since the temperature is so high that the water is decomposed into O and H2- the hydrogen then ignites in air.
Finely divided magnesium will ignite even more easily than a chunk- making the chips from machining a hazard.

But never fear-- the titanium material in my PB is even worse. Finely divided Ti is WAY dangerous and also burns fiercely. Remember that materials which are corrosion resistant are ususally so due to some tenacious oxide layer that they form since they are so reactive with air. Remove that layer and the stage is set. Many materials like Ti, Zirconium and Uranium are actually pyrophoric- a pinch of powder of them will spontaneously ignite if dropped through the air.
These principles are used to make neat things like super intense flares or sparkers- by burning Teflon with powdered aluminum for example.

The next material they should consider using for the PB is 2195 aluminum/Lithium. This material is lighter than the strongest WROUGHT standard aircraft aluminum, 10% stiffer and stronger and can be welded using even more high-tech but cheap stirweld technologies. This means that even though it has higher density than Mg alloys it will be generally lighter and weird shapes can still be made in it without resorting to machining. And since stiffness of the chassis is already a real issue at 1" thickness this could be a real boon and aid going thinner. And as for cool factor- well ! You can also directly stirweld copper or Al heat pipes directly to it without joints- think about that for next gen processors. I personally think that combined with an ultra thin fiber-placed graphite composite top shell this would be a real 21st century machine.

[JSRockit]

The new Alienware laptops are made of Magnesium Alloy.

[patrick0brien]

Originally posted by frankzeg
2195 aluminum/Lithium.

-frankzeg

Isn't that a little on the toxic side?

[frankzeg]

No 2195 is not toxic- it is just another aluminum alloy. It looks more or less the same as any Al alloy and has many of the same properties. You were probably thinking of Beryllium. In some forms it is highly toxic - and though it would probably make the ultimate structure for a laptop I suspect the frame would cost more than everything else combined.
By way of example I believe that i read that the Next Generation Space Telescope mirrors will be made from beryllium. Incredibly light and stiff stuff- too bad about the toxicity.