How to Calculate the Thickness of Aluminum Foil
From building aircraft to keeping food safe in the kitchen, aluminum, a highly malleable, low-density metal, has become an essential part of modern life. Aluminum foil is probably one of the thinnest but solid materials available in a household. Measuring its thickness is an instructive exercise to understand different measuring instruments, methods and properties. Because it is so thin, the thickness of aluminum foil can't be measured directly using household measuring tools like a ruler or a measuring tape. However, there are indirect ways to measure its thickness, one of which relies on its most useful characteristic -- density.
Instructions
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1
Weigh a single sheet of aluminum foil using a precise balance that can measure in milligrams to find the thickness of aluminum foil indirectly. Divide it by 1,000 to get its mass in grams.
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2
Measure the surface area of the aluminum foil in centimeters using a ruler. Surface area is calculated by multiplying the length by the width. For example, surface area of a foil measuring 5 cm by 5 cm equals 25 cm^2.
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3
Replace volume with area * thickness in the equation, density = mass/volume. Thus, density = mass /(area * thickness). Multiply both sides of the equation by thickness and divide by density to get the formula thickness = mass/(area * density).
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4
Use the formula for thickness in Step 3 to determine the thickness of aluminum foil. The standard density of aluminum is 2.702 grams per cubic centimeter. In this example, an aluminum foil of mass 0.01 grams and area of 25 cm^2 has a thickness of 0.01/(25*2.702), which equals 0.000148 cm.
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Tips & Warnings
Alternatively, bundle many sheets of aluminum foil with the same shape and size together (say 100 sheets) and compress it uniformly so that there is not gap between the sheets. Measure its thickness using a ruler and divide by the number of sheets (here, 100) to obtain the thickness of an individual foil.
The thickness of aluminum foil can also be measured directly using a micrometer.
References
Resources
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