Aluminum Alloy for

Aerospace Structures
 Aluminum Alloys
• Al is used in large proportion in aircraft as compared with other major
aerospace materials; steel, Ti, Mg and FRP.
• Around 400 000 tonne of Al is used each year to mfg military and civil
aircraft
• Al accounts for 60–80% of airframe weight of most modern passenger
aircraft, helicopters and space vehicles.
• Al is likely to remain important structural material despite growing use
of composites in large passenger airliners; Airbus 380, 350XWB and
Boeing 787.
• Airframe of most modern military aircraft consists of 40–60% Al,
which is less than used in commercial airliners
 Aluminum Alloys
• Al is a popular aerospace structural material for many important
reasons, including:
– moderate cost;
– ease of fabrication, including casting, forging and heat-treatment
– light weight (density of only 2.7 g cm–3)
– high specific stiffness and specific strength
– ductility, fracture toughness and fatigue resistance
– good control of properties by mechanical and thermal treatments

• disadvantages of using Al alloys in aircraft structures includes:

– low mechanical properties at elevated temperature (softening
occurs above ~150 °C)
– age-hardenable alloys cannot be easily welded
– corrosion when in contact with carbon-fibre composites
– susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking
• susceptibility to stress corrosion cracking increases with improvement
in strength gained by thermal ageing
• Special ageing treatments have been developed to minimise the risk
of stress corrosion damage in Al structures
 Aluminum Alloys
Aluminum Alloy Types
types
• Al alloys are classified as:
– casting
– wrought non-heat-treatable - not used in aerospace structures
– wrought heat-treatable
• Mechanical properties of casting alloys are inferior to wrought alloys,
and are used in small, non-load-bearing parts/components on aircraft
• Wrought heat-treatable Al alloys are used in aircraft structures which
strength properties can be improved by plastic forming (extrusion,
drawing, rolling, etc) and appropriate heat treatment.
• Heat treatment refers to any heating condition employed to:
– change metallurgical structure (crystal structure, grain size,
dislocation density, precipitates)
– Enhance mechanical properties (yield strength, fatigue resistance,
fracture toughness)
– Enhance environmental durability (corrosion / oxidation resistance)
– change internal residual stress state
• Heat treatment of wrought Al alloys implies processes employed to
increase the strength by aging or precipitation hardening
• Yield strength of age-hardenable Al alloys is typically 450 to 600 MPa.
 Al Alloy Designation System
• Al alloy is designated by four-digit number
– First digit indicates the series number.
– For example, 1XXX indicates 1000 series, 2XXX is 2000 series
alloy, and so forth.
– Second digit indicates number of modifications to the alloy type.
– For example, with alloy 5352 Al the second digit (3) indicates that
the alloy has been modified three times, but has a similar
composition to earlier versions 5052 Al, 5152 Al and 5252 Al.
– Last two digits only have meaning for the 1000 series alloys. In
this series, the last two digits specify the minimum purity level of
the aluminum.
– For example, 1200 Al has a min purity of 99.00% and 1145 Al is at
least 99.45% pure.
– Last two digits in 2000 to 8000 series has no meaningful
relationship to alloy content and serves no purpose other than to
identify the different alloys in a series.
• For cast alloys, a decimal point is located between the last two digits.
• After these digits, a hyphen and temper designation is marked by a
letter and one- to three-digit number, indicating mechanical and/or
heat treatment condition of the alloy.
 Al Alloy Designation System

• UNS for wrought Al alloys uses same number as the Al Association

designation but precedes it with “A9” (for example, UNS A95052 for 5052).
• UNS for cast Al alloys also uses the same number as the Al Association
designation but precedes it with A and a number 0 or higher (for example,
UNS Al4440 for A444.0).
 Temper Designation
• Temper is a forging and thermal treatment performed on Aluminum
product to achieve the desired level of metallurgical properties.
Additional digits may be added to designations T1 through T10 for variations in treatment.
Stress relieved tempers follow the conventions listed below.

Stress relieved by stretching:

T_51—Applies to plate and rolled or cold-finished rod or bar, die or ring forgings, and rolled rings
when stretched after solution heat treatment or after cooling from an elevated temperature
shaping process. The products receive no further straightening after stretching.
(Example: 6061-T651)
T_510—Applies to extruded rod, bar, profiles, and tubes and to drawn tube when stretched after
solution heat treatment or after cooling from an elevated temperature shaping process.
T_511—Applies to extruded rod, bar, profiles, and tubes and to drawn tube when stretched after
solution heat treatment or after cooling from an elevated temperature shaping process. These
products may receive minor straightening after stretching to comply with standard tolerances.
These stress-relieved temper products usually have larger tolerances on dimensions than
products of other tempers.

Stress relieved by compressing:

T_52—Applies to products that are stress relieved by compressing after solution heat treatment
or cooling from an elevated temperature shaping process to produce a permanent set of 1 to 5%.

Stress relieved by combined stretching and compressing:

T_54—Applies to die forgings that are stress relieved by restriking cold in finish die.
For wrought products heat treated from annealed or F temper (or other temper when such heat
treatments result in the mechanical properties assigned to these tempers):
T42—Solution heat treated from annealed or F temper and naturally aged to a substantially
stable condition (Example: 2024-T42)
T62—Solution heat treated from annealed or F temper and artificially aged (Example: 6066-T62)
 Age-hardenable Al Alloys
• 2000, 6000, 7000 and many 8000 alloys can be strengthened
by age-hardening, necessary to obtain the strength needed for
use in highly loaded aircraft structure.

2000 series Al alloys (Al–Cu)

• 2000-series main alloying element is Cu, which readily forms high
strength precipitates when Al is age-hardened by heat treatment.
• 2000 alloys are characterized by high strength, fatigue resistance and
toughness.
• 2024 Al (Al–4.4Cu–1.5Mg) is the most common alloy, in use for many
years to mfg stringers, longerons, spars, bulkheads, carry-throughs,
stressed skins and trusses.
• Newer alloy; 2054 Al has 15–20% higher fracture toughness and twice
the fatigue resistance of 2024 Al. Other 2000 series used in aircraft
include 2018 Al, 2025 Al, 2048 Al, 2117 Al and 2124 Al.
• Cu, Mg and Zn provide high strength through SSS and PH.
• Reducing impurities, particularly Fe & Si, result in higher fracture
toughness and better resistance to fatigue crack initiation and growth.
 Age-hardenable Al Alloys
6000 series Al alloys (Al–Mg–Si)
• Principal alloying elements in 6000 series are Mg & Si.
• 6000 series alloys are used generally in non-aerospace
components, such as buildings, rail cars, boat hulls, ship
superstructures and, increasingly in automotive parts.
• 6061 Al (Al–1%Mg–0.6Si) is used in aircraft wing ribs,
ducting, tanks, fairing and framework due to low fracture
toughness.
 Age-hardenable Al Alloys
7000 series Al alloys (Al–Cu–Zn)
• Cu & Zn are main alloying elements in 7000 alloys, with
Zn content 3-4 times higher than Cu. Mg is also important
alloying element.
• These elements form high-strength precipitates when Al is
age-hardened.
• 7000 & 2000 series Al alloys represent most common Al
alloys used in aircraft.
• Yield strength of 7000 alloys is 470-600 MPa and 2000
alloys is about 300-450 MPa.
• 7000 alloys are used in aircraft structures including; upper
wing surfaces, spars, stringers, framework, pressure
bulkheads and carry-throughs.
• 7075 Al is the most often used in aircraft structures.
• Other 7000 series alloys used in aircraft include; 7049 Al,
7050 Al, 7079 Al, 7090 Al, 7091 Al, 7178 Al and 7475 Al.
 Age-hardenable Al Alloys
8000 series Al alloys (Al–Li)
• Al alloys that cannot be classified as per its chemical composition in
any one of 1000 to 7000 series, are allocated to 8000 series.
• Several 8000 alloys contain Lithium, having unique behavior as it
reduces density while simultaneously increase elastic modulus and
tensile strength.
• 8000 series alloys are characterized by high specific stiffness and also
have superior fatigue resistance compared with 2000 and 7000 alloys.
• Density of Al decrease by 3% and modulus increases by 5% for every
1% addition of Li, showing significant weight savings for large Al
structures.
• Three Al–Li alloys most often used in aerospace structures are 8090 Al
(2.4%Li–1.3%Cu–0.9Mg), 8091 Al (2.6%Li–1.9%Cu–0.9%Mg), and
8092 Al (2.4%Li–0.65%Cu–1.2%Mg).
• 8000 series alloys are expensive and are used sparingly as aerospace
structural material, where cost is not as issue and high specific
stiffness and excellent fatigue performance is critical
Examples:
• 8092 Al alloys are used in fuselage frames of F16 as replacement for 2024 Al,
resulting in 3X increase in fatigue life, 5% reduction in weight and higher stiffness.
• 8090 Al is used in the fuselage of EH 101 helicopter, improved fatigue
performance and lower weight by 180 kg
• Al–Li alloys are used in super lightweight tanks for space shuttle, providing
weight saving of ~ 3 tonne, resulting in increase in shuttle payload.
 Thermal ageing of Al Alloys

• Ageing process transforms supersaturated solid solution to precipitate particles

which greatly enhance strength properties, required for aerospace structures.
• Ageing can occur at room temperature ‘natural ageing’, or at elevated
temperature ‘artificial ageing’.
• Natural ageing is generally a slow process and its effects may only become
significant after many months or years
 Thermal ageing of Al Alloys

Artificial ageing is performed in the range of 150 to 200 °C for times

between several minutes and many hours, depending on part size
and desired amount of hardening.
 High-temperature strength of Al
• Material properties; stiffness, strength, fatigue resistance and
toughness of Al alloys degrade at high temperature (100–150 °C)
• Thermal softening is a key factor in selection of Al alloys for aerospace
structures that experience large temperature rise due to frictional
heating of skin at high speeds/Mach Nos
• Hottest parts of the aircraft are the nose cone, wing leading edges and
tail sections, where temperatures exceeds 150 °C at around Mach 2.0
• Temperatures exceeding 1000 °C are experienced during re-entry of
space shuttle and temperatures above 500 °C can occur in ultra-high
speed aircraft.

At higher temperatures, Al must

be thermally protected by a heat
shield, such as ceramic tiles.