The Aluminum Beverage Can; September 1994; Scientific American Magazine; by Hosford, Duncan; 6 Page(s)

Makers of beer and soft-drink containers in the U.S. produce 300 million aluminum beverage cans a day, 100 billion of them every year. The industry's output, the equivalent of one can per American per day, outstrips even the production of nails and paper clips. If asked whether the beverage can requires any more special care in its manufacture than do those other homey objects, most of us would probably answer negatively. In fact, manufacturers of aluminum cans exercise the same attention and precision as do makers of the metal in an aircraft wing. The engineers who press the design of cans toward perfection apply the same analytical methods used for space vehicles.

As a result of these efforts, today's can weighs about 0.48 ounce, down from about 0.66 ounce in the 1960s, when such containers were first constructed. The standard American aluminum can, which holds 12 ounces of liquid, is not only light in weight and rugged but is also about the same height and diameter as the traditional drinking tumbler. Such a can, whose wall surfaces are thinner than two pages from this magazine, withstands more than 90 pounds of pressure per square inch--three times the pressure in an automobile tire.