Aluminum foil
Description
A thin sheet of aluminum or an aluminum alloy. Aluminum foil is rolled to thicknesses of about 20 microns or less. It generally has one highly polished side and one matte side because two sheets are rolled at the same time then separated. Aluminum foil tears easily, is impermeable to air, reflective to radiation, and has commonly been used for packaging food. It is also laminated to paper, boards, and plastic to provide a material vapor barrier layer. Crumpled aluminum foil has also been used for thermal insulation.
Synonyms and Related Terms
tin foil; al-foil; alu-foil; aluminium foil (Br.); stanniol (Dan.); tinfoile (Dan.); Alufolie (Deut.); Aluminiumfolie (Deut., Ned.); feuille d'aluminium (Fr.); papel de aluminio (Esp.); zilverpapier (Ned.); folha de alumnio (Port.); Reynolds Wrap ; Alcoa wrap
Other Properties
Thicknesses range from 6-20 microns (0.0065 - 0.020 mm)
Authority
- G.S.Brady, G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 64
- Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at http://www.wikipedia.com Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_foil (Accessed Mar. 15, 2006) -for non-English terms