Aviation aluminum alloy application

Today we're going to talk about aviation aluminum alloy application. According to reports, for every 1kg reduction in space launch vehicles entering the air, its launch cost will save about 20,000 US dollars, so structural weight reduction can be described as "gram calculation" in the aerospace field. A 15% reduction in fighter weight can reduce the run-distance of the aircraft by 15%, increase the range by 20%, and increase the payload by 30%. Therefore, countries around the world attach great importance to the research and development of lightweight structural materials for aviation aluminum.

Aviation aluminum alloy is widely used in the aerospace field with its unique advantages such as small density, moderate strength, easy processing and forming, strong corrosion resistance, abundant resources and strong recyclability. The skins, beams, ribs, stringers, partitions and landing gear on the aircraft can be made of aluminum alloy, and the crew compartment, front fuselage, middle fuselage, rear fuselage, vertical tail, flaps, lifting aileron and horizontal tail of the shuttle are all made of aluminum alloy. Depending on the purpose of the aircraft, the amount of aluminum used is also different. Civil aircraft that focus on economic benefits are widely used due to the cheap price of aluminum alloys, such as the aluminum alloy used in the Boeing 767 passenger aircraft, which accounts for about 81% of the weight of the fuselage structure. Some aviation aluminum alloys have good low-temperature properties and can work in liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen environments, so they are good materials for making liquid rockets. The fuel tanks, oxidizer tanks, inter-tank sections, interstage sections, tail sections and instrument compartments of all stages of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle that launched the Apollo spacecraft are made of aviation aluminum alloy.

At present, the aluminum alloy materials used in aviation civil aircraft mainly include: aluminum alloy castings, aluminum alloy forgings, large section aluminum alloy extrusion profiles, aluminum alloy thick plates and aluminum lithium alloys.