interestingasfuck

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interestingasfuck

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Metal melted out of a car (npr.brightspotcdn.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by kersploosh@sh.itjust.works to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world

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The shiny puddles look like some low-temp metal melted and oozed out of the car as it burned. I wonder what part(s) melted, and what type of metal it is?

The picture is from a NPR piece about the current Los Angeles wildfires: https://www.npr.org/sections/the-picture-show/2025/01/09/g-s1-41784/los-angeles-fire-photos

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[–] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 119 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

That is almost certainly aluminum, not enough lead in a modern car and the color is wrong.

Aluminum melts at a bit over 1200 degrees freedom, wildfires can exceed 2000 freedom units.

Engines, wheels, and suspension components are commonly made from aluminum. Looking at the scene presented, it is probably mostly the wheels that melted and ran downhill.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

1200 F ~ 649 C

2000 F ~ 1093 C

[–] SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

Thank you

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 19 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Damn, you replied before I did. I was gonna say that it looks like someone is using leaded fuel

Edit: Also, the F does stand for freedom, so "degrees freedom" is correct. But I thought "freedom units" are like when you say how many infant-fevers hot a fire is.

[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Today was a cold, stiff day with only 3 degrees of freedom

[–] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

with only 3 degrees of freedom

So almost fully constrained!

[–] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

Units of freedom is a measurement of freedom related to the number of children killed in school shootings.

Freedom units are units of measurement in countries that have been to the moon, analogous to saying metric in referring to a base 10 measurement system that was used to get to the moon.

[–] seathru@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Magnesium alloy subframe, suspension, and wheels are also fairly common in modern cars.

[–] fahfahfahfah@lemmy.billiam.net 20 points 3 weeks ago

FWIW the magnesium would burn rather than melt probably

[–] Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 weeks ago

Something about this really makes me want to see if you can separate out the component metals of a car via extremely high temp fractional distilation.