Properties of Duralumin

[Duxredux he/him]

Duralumin is an alloy of 96% aluminum and 4% copper. We know the Allomantic, Feruchemical, hypothetical Hemalurgic usages, and how ettmetal responds to it when it is Allomantically burned.

What I don't know, is how it reacts to other Metallic arts, and I can't remember it ever coming up. Does it block Steelsight lines? Can it be Pushed or Pulled? Does it block emotional Allomancy? Could it resist a Shardblade? Does it resist or conduct Investiture? We know that certain alloys of Aluminum retain their immunity to A-Steel, but it seems like we have good reason to be uncertain for Duralumin. Most questions about Duralumin probably are along the lines of "what happens if you burn Duralumin while x/y/x" and not "How similar is Duralumin to Aluminum in how it reacts to Investiture and the Invested Arts?" What properties would the metal have in a fabrial?

All the questions. Any answers?

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

17 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

What properties would the metal have in a fabrial?

It would most likely use all available stormlight, for example a heatrail would have a huge outburst of heat that could cause burns.

 

19 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Does it block Steelsight lines? Can it be Pushed or Pulled? Does it block emotional Allomancy? Could it resist a Shardblade?

I would imagine it would act this way.

 

20 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Does it resist or conduct Investiture?

Resist, maybe. Conduct? That seems like a property of Raysium.

 

21 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

ettmetal responds to it when it is Allomantically burned.

How does it react? I've neverheard anything about that.

[Duxredux he/him]

@Xiahida, sources?

 

6 minutes ago, Xiahida said:

29 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

ettmetal responds to it when it is Allomantically burned.

How does it react? I've neverheard anything about that.

WoB:

Spoiler

Rodrigo

What would be the difference between an aluminum and a chromium grenade, and between nicrosil and duralumin grenades?

Brandon Sanderson

We're talking specifically about the Bands of Mourning ones?

*Matt affirms*

So, what would be the difference? Aluminum would create a sort of "You can't use Allomancy in this... nearby this" most likely, yeah. Duralumin would do the opposite. You would be able to use it and then enhance someone. I haven't played with the ranges on these things yet, and so that's where we get into kind of the question mark territory. Like, right now, I haven't really given them an area of effect unless the power itself has an area of effect. Does that make sense?

But, my intent is to get to the point where it's doing things like this, right. Where you could theoretically be an Aluminum Gnat, you could charge this thing up and throw. And hey, you know, you have... the Metalborn nearby are unable to use their talents. That's convenient, right? Like, I want more of the powers to be relevant and these grenades are a way to do that.

You know, Marasi's power is not the most useful on the planet to have herself. For those who don't know, she can slow down time... well, speed up time? Awkward how... the phrasing of how you do that. But basically she can make a bubble around herself where everyone outside of it moves super fast. That's not terribly useful, right? Unless you want to age, you know, really slowly.

[...]

Not really useful in combat, to be able to be like "Yeah, I'm gonna make all my enemies move really, really fast and I can't respond to them". But, she can charge up one of those grenades and toss it, it becomes real handy. For her, the grenades are more useful than the inverse, right, because speeding up someone is useful, but slowing someone down takes someone out of the battle essentially. Or a whole globe of them... globe is the wrong term, but yeah.

The Dusty Wheel Show (June 17, 2021)

 

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Duralumin is an alloy of 96% aluminum and 4% copper. We know the Allomantic, Feruchemical, hypothetical Hemalurgic usages, and how ettmetal responds to it when it is Allomantically burned.

What I don't know, is how it reacts to other Metallic arts, and I can't remember it ever coming up. Does it block Steelsight lines? Can it be Pushed or Pulled? Does it block emotional Allomancy? Could it resist a Shardblade? Does it resist or conduct Investiture? We know that certain alloys of Aluminum retain their immunity to A-Steel, but it seems like we have good reason to be uncertain for Duralumin. Most questions about Duralumin probably are along the lines of "what happens if you burn Duralumin while x/y/x" and not "How similar is Duralumin to Aluminum in how it reacts to Investiture and the Invested Arts?" What properties would the metal have in a fabrial?

All the questions. Any answers?

We don't know. We only know that some alloys of aluminum will inherit the investiture blocking properties of the aluminum itself, but we don't know if that extends to duralumin. I think because duralumin is one of the base sixteen metals, it would be different from aluminum and it wouldn't block investiture. It wouldn't block the Steelsight, it should be Pushed/Pulled, it shouldn't block emotional allomancy, no Shardblade resistant, it would do something to investiture, potentially an effect similar to A-duralumin. But those are just my guesses. 

On the other hand the WoB said "any" alloy so this might include duralumin. However, I highly doubt duralumin has the same effect as aluminum when exposed to fabrials or Aether spores. It should do something else, like supercharging it or something similar to that. Therefore, if in those cases duralumin wouldn't block investiture, why would it do it in other cases like with the Steelsight or Pushes?

Spoiler

Longshot_97

This question concerns Mistborn Era 2. Aluminum at this time is supremely rare and quite expensive, and Wax is seen lamenting his profound lack of aluminum guns and bullets fairly often. However, couldn't he fashion a "Poor Man's Aluminum" of sorts by coating his guns (and potentially bullets) in a thin veneer of iron, then Feruchemically charging it? You've noted that metalminds can still be pushed, but much less than un-Invested metal. This could help him, in the absence of aluminum. So, is there a reason he has not done that?

Brandon Sanderson

The layer you would get by just that little coat would be so small that it'd have very little effect. Now, there's a pretty good argument for putting it into bullets. The problem there is: are the alloys that make good bullets going to work very well? Now, granted, aluminum doesn’t make for great bullets either. But any aluminum alloy kind of gets the property of aluminum. Where any iron alloy does not necessarily get the property of being able to allomantically or feruchemically interact with it in the right way. Can you get there? It's an excellent question that I perhaps should explore. I like this idea. But it's harder than you make it out to be. It is a good idea, though; it's a pretty good idea.

r/books AMA 2022 (July 7, 2022)

 

Edited September 7, 2024 by alder24

[Vandero]

It was a chore to discover the aluminum alloy that counts as allomantic/cosmere aluminum, for manufacturing of guns. That means more than one alloy formula count as a viable metal or alloy. But different allomantically/cosmere viable metals have entirely different interactions with the magical systems. If duralumin just inherited aluminum properties, they'd have made duralumin guns, to begin with. It doesn't, just as bronze doesn't inherit the properties of copper or tin.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Vandero

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 9/7/2024 at 10:54 AM, Duxredux said:

...

What I don't know, is how it reacts to other Metallic arts, and I can't remember it ever coming up. Does it block Steelsight lines? Can it be Pushed or Pulled? Does it block emotional Allomancy? Could it resist a Shardblade? Does it resist or conduct Investiture? We know that certain alloys of Aluminum retain their immunity to A-Steel, but it seems like we have good reason to be uncertain for Duralumin. Most questions about Duralumin probably are along the lines of "what happens if you burn Duralumin while x/y/x" and not "How similar is Duralumin to Aluminum in how it reacts to Investiture and the Invested Arts?" What properties would the metal have in a fabrial?

...

I strongly suspect that what we're going to gradually find is that, almost any alloy which is composed in majority of elemental aluminum is going to have a dampening and resistive effect on Investiture, ranging from the trivially weak and barely detectable to the almost completely inert. I suspect that in era3 or maybe era4 mistborn it will eventually be revealed that even pure elemental aluminum is not perfectly inert, IE: an obscenely over-the-top mechanical-allomancy based steel push (like an interplanetary PR spaceship transitioning through an orbit) will be able to toss a block of pure aluminum just fine; the reactionary force might be dampened by several orders of magnitude or more, but it is never actually outright canceled.

All that to say: I would find it very difficult to believe that Duralumin isn't noticeably very similar to aluminum in its Investiture blocking, reflecting, and dampening properties on a mathematical level, however, those values have not been canonized on page yet so...how similar remains a simply unconfirmed principle as yet for Cosmere metaphysics.

To clarify, I'm suggesting (opining) that the dampening effects of aluminum probably approach an asymptotic limit as a function of elemental purity that only simulates outright inertness for 100% (99.999% if we wanna get super technical) pure aluminum.

Best guess? Duralumin is probably going to be somewhere between 3% and 97% as robust a dampener relative to pure aluminum depending on the fine details of how copper doping functions in practice. That could translate on page as anywhere from a very slight, "pushing on this block is slightly more difficult than I was expecting, but it doesn't really matter outside of extremely precise allomantic machine design," to, "holy heck! I have to push hard enough to get a nosebleed to even move this insane block an inch! It's not aluminum or a filled metalmind! What is it!?" 

Edit: Just in case I'm correct eventually, here's a sketch of what I was thinking. (Unitless for example of course)

Edited October 21, 2024 by hwiles