Remember the Unibody MacBook, so called because it was milled from a single chunk of aluminum? Now that most of Apple’s products are made that way, you never hear the term “Unibody” any more – it’s like cars: you only write “16-valve”, “ABS” or “fuel injection”on the back when you’re showing off something new.
It’s time, then, for a new construction method, and the new “trashcan” Mac Pro has one. It’s called Impact Extrusion, and it is super cool.
Impact extrusion works by dropping a solid slug of aluminum into a hole, and ramming a piston in after it. The slug then pops out of the gap between piston and hole like a straight-sided metal balloon. It’s pretty spectacular[1]:
Incredible, right? I don’t know what kind of force is needed to make the edges of the puck pop up like that, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to get my fingers anywhere near it. It also looks a lot quicker than I imagine unibodying[2] to be.
I wonder how long it’ll be before someone uses this method to make an actual trashcan?
Source: Core77
Via: The Giz