"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 21:15:50 -0800, "CalifBill"
wrote:

If you heat aluminum in the presence of oxygen in first melts and then
begins to do something which closely resembles burning at very high
temperatures. After glowing red very brightly, it turns into a
powdery ash within seconds.

I'd call it burning, purists may not.


It might be burning, but will it support combustion like wood or
magnesium?

In the presence of the right oxidizers it absolutely will.

The thermite reaction for example which will burn through almost
anything:

2Al(solid) + Fe2O3(solid) ---- 2 Fe + Al2O3

or as rocket fuel:

6 NH4ClO4 (oxidant) + 10 Al = 5 Al2O3 + 6 HCl + 3N2 + 9 H2O

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...on/q0246.shtml

More he

http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=ge...er =ADA425147





Sort of like Magnesium in the presence of aluminum. Funny story about
Thermite. Company I worked for in the 1980's designed and build part of an
An/uyk 6 battle computer. One of the FE's was aboard a ship and asked what
this thing on top of the computer was. Operator says is a destruct device.
and accidently trigger the thermite bomb, which proceeded to burn through
the computer (Thick Aluminum case) and then the deck below the computer.
Luckily was not our FE who triggered the disaster. Do not know what
actually happended to the squid who did.