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Asked by 433kvna44 to Caoimhe, Colin, David, Katie, Lisa on 11 Nov 2014.
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David Taylor answered on 11 Nov 2014:
Atoms – lots of them! Aluminim is full of atoms of aluminium (Al); iron is full of atoms of iron (Fe). Millions and Billions of them even in a tiny bit. Metals like steel are what we call ALLOYS – they contain more than one element. For example steel contains iron (Fe) and also carbon (C) and sometimes other elements as well.
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Colin Keogh answered on 11 Nov 2014:
As David said, they are made up of atoms. But you might be surprised to find out that metals grow like crystals. The have a crystal structure like ice, which give them strength. Engineers car control how these crystals shapes grow to make metals do certain things or look a certain way.
We can look at these crystal shapes using a process call Metallography, The crystals look like this
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Katie Mahon answered on 12 Nov 2014:
The guys have covered this qs better than I ever could! The science behind different metals is really interesting. Some metals are found like bits of rock in the ground, so you would have an underground gold or copper mine for collecting the metal chunks. It’s then treated or cleaned up & melted down to be used to make something useful.
Other metals are man-made, so people have mixed 2 things together to get the final metal. As David mentions, these are called alloys. This is how we can create metals which might be stronger, easier to use, lighter, bendier or less likely to rust etc.
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