<VV> Theoretical recommendations.

[jvhroberts at aol.com]

 The Corvair fan is nearly pure magnesium, but it is an alloy. And although magnesium ribbon and shavings can be ignited, but s casting like this is just too thick in section to ignite easily. Magnesium castings are gaining acceptance in today's cars because of its exception strength to weight ratio, its exceptional stiffness to weight ratio, and the fact it has somewhat better fatigue resistance than aluminum. 

To set a Corvair fan on fire would take one hell of a lot of heat, like from an oxyacetylene torch!

 

John Roberts
 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan Blackwell <bryan at skiblack.com>
To: Charles Fregeau <n5hsr at sprynet.com>
Cc: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Sent: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 9:27 pm
Subject: Re: <VV> Theoretical recommendations.


It's not really that easy to light magnesium on fire, but yes, they burn, and as 

far as I've ever heard they are all made of the same material - there might have 

been some alloying, but I've always heard it as a straight magnesium.  So are VW 

beetle transmission cases, they burn really well.  And yes, that's the origin of 

the term 'mag' wheel, the really light racing wheels were magnesium.



BTW, a tank of gasoline also burns pretty good.  Lots of really dangerous stuff 

about cars.  I wish more people understood that fact.



--Bryan



On Sep 1, 2010, at 6:31 PM, Charles Fregeau wrote:



> All magnesium?  Isn't that a bit dangerous?  I remember in high school our

> physics teacher got a ribbon of magnesium and made us wear goggles while he

> lit it and boy did it ever burn.



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