1 V S Harikrishna (160010054) AE 238

Summary of “Progress in structural materials for aerospace systems”

Overview
The paper discusses the various roles played by the developments made in the field of aircraft structures, specifically
structural materials in improving the life expectancy, cost, and performance of aircraft over the years. The focus of
these improvements was on material design, manufacturing processes and optimization of various trade-offs between
desirable properties for structural materials belonging to various parts of the aircraft.
Structures play a vital role in improving the value of an aerospace product by improving the customer value of a
product. This is not only through improving the performance to cost ratio but also by reducing the ownership cost,
increasing the life, and reducing environmental impact. Value is also added by improving the reliability of the product.
The development and use of a structure for a particular purpose depends on four aspects: materials selection,
manufacturability, design methods and product acceptance. One tries to achieve not only superior performance but
also damage tolerance and reliability by making developments in the above four aspects of structural materials.
Materials for aerospace systems
This section discusses how the focus during choice of a material for a system shifted from minimising weight to
improving damage tolerance and life of components manufactured using the materials. Consequently, the design
criterion shifted from only considering strength to weight ratio to also including fracture toughness and fatigue crack
growth during material selection. This happened as aircrafts started having protracted service lives compared to earlier
as technology of flight improved over time, bringing to light the need for good damage tolerance and fail-safe design
for aircraft structures. Also, since aircrafts were subjected to repeated loading, one must consider fatigue life of the
components critical to the aircraft’s operation. Sometimes these properties do not appear inherently in available
choices of materials so we employ computational aid in optimising the trade-offs between various properties with
weight and designing a new material. It was graphically shown that structural materials and design improvements
alone have brought forth a gain of about 10% in fuel efficiency of the aircraft over the past 40 years.
The main materials used in aerospace structures are aluminium, steel, titanium, and nickel. These materials by
themselves do not possess the desirable mix of properties mentioned previously and so are used in an alloyed form
with other elements. The type of element alloyed with these materials depends on the specific focus of the component
in the aircraft system and the operating environments but aim for improving one of the following properties: specific
yield strength, specific stiffness, fracture toughness, fatigue resistance (low cycle fatigue and high cycle fatigue) and
resistance to corrosion. It is also noted that manufacturing and material acquisition costs play a significant role in
selection of materials.
Improvements of materials can be broadly classified into two categories: revolutionary improvements where one
chose to design and develop a new material from scratch with our desired mix of properties in mind, and evolutionary
improvements where one chose to develop the existing materials over time by refining their composition and
manufacturing processes or through tempering. While revolutionary improvements are substantial and immediate,
they have not been successfully incorporated into aircrafts due to high initial and certification cost as well as the
possibility of developing new infrastructure for their manufacture. Evolutionary improvements however, have been
steadily incorporated into the industry over the past years and have resulted in significant improvements over an
extended period. The paper focuses on evolutionary improvements made in the material design and manufacturing
processes of three main materials: Al, Ti, and Ni alloys. The paper finally focuses lightly on the revolutionary aspect
of improvements by discussing some new alloys that show most promise, the prospect of them being incorporated into
the industry and the challenges in doing so for each of the three above mentioned materials.
2 V S Harikrishna (160010054) AE 238

Evolutionary improvement in aluminium (Al) alloys for aircraft structures

The evolutionary improvements in aluminium alloys were incorporated into the industry much faster than other
materials as it had a lower manufacturing and life cycle cost, it could replace existing materials without much risk and
its production was based on existing infrastructure. Al alloys seek to achieve a good balance of specific strength,
fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth resistance through an economic manufacturing process. The various
properties require specific microstructure within the material that sometimes conflict with one another. For example,
for fatigue crack initiation resistance we need the microstructure to contain fine grains with no shearable particles and
no surface defects meanwhile fatigue crack propagation resistance require the microstructure to contain large grains
with shearable particles which are clearly at odds with one another. Another such example happens with Fracture
toughness and tensile yield strength. Achieving improvement in one property often comes at the cost of another
material property. So, we must achieve a microstructure that presents a mix of properties that are balanced and suited
to our needs. Such trade-offs are done using phase diagrams (CALPHAD) and metallurgical simulators (VASP). Over
the past forty years, we were able to improve on the specific stiffness of aluminium alloys by about 60% due to
precise microstructure control. Also, optimisations yielded a 15-20% increase in fracture toughness for the same
tensile yield strength and twice the fatigue crack growth rate (in case of Al 2524-T3 alloy). Similarly, the increase in
strength and durability of one alloy (Al 7150-T77) was increased significantly while maintaining the same durability
and damage tolerance characteristics as the its original (Al 7150) through the process of tempering. One must also pay
mind to the corrosion resistance of aluminium structures while designing and manufacturing them as they are mostly
exposed to air during their life.
Improvements in manufacturing processes, such as superplastic forming and tempering has helped control
microstructure properties after material design and have resulted in improvements ranging from 15% up to 100%
improvements on upper and lower wing plate and fuselage sheet materials. Superplastic forming also helped reduce
part count and manufacturing cost in the manufacture of complicated parts using single sheets. Although the range of
materials that can be formed from thin sheets are limited due to microstructural limitations and strain induced
microstructural deviations. But new materials suitable for superplastic forming are being developed.
Revolutionary improvements in aluminium alloys for aircraft structures
A revolutionary improvement in al based materials occurred when an important alloy of aluminium, lithium-based
alloys were introduced. They have higher specific modulus than conventional ones. After their introduction in the
1970s, they were refined over time and their use combined with a new structural design manged to achieve 12%
weight reduction in the Space shuttle tank and achieved doubled the service life of the BL 19 longerons for the F16
fighter jet wings. These improvements resulted in several millions of dollars either in initial costs (in case of the space
shuttle tank) or operating costs over time (in case of the f 16 longeron). Alloys with magnesium and scandinavium
provide corrosion resistance and those with beryllium provide high specific stiffness, replacing composites in some
critical sections.
The introduction of aluminium sheet – composites like ARALL and GLARE was another revolutionary improvement.
They have high fatigue resistance and potentially significant weight reduction capability, suitable to substitute for
titanium in firewalls. Sandwich structures also offer highly competitive load bearing capacities opposed to more
expensive honeycomb structures. The design of a new material aims to either provide as a cheaper alternative to
current materials or to drastically improve performance compared to current counterparts at an added cost.
Even so, newer technologies are not implemented into new aircrafts, especially in the civil aviation industry even
though they offer advantages as an evolutionary approach is preferred by most manufacturers. Although, after enough
time and testing, some revolutionary improvements have been added gradually in later versions of newer aircrafts as a
value addition to their existing customer values.
An exception to this is in case of military aviation, where high performance and reliability is the prime selling point
even at an increase in cost. Thus, revolutionary improvements have been introduced prominently in military aviation
industry.
3 V S Harikrishna (160010054) AE 238

Usage and evolutionary improvements in titanium (Ti) and nickel (Ni) alloys in aircraft structures and
propulsion systems
Unlike aluminium, titanium alloys have high acquisition cost and are expensive to manufacture. They are used in
situations where one requires high strength at reduced weight and volume, for example landing gears assembly or high
corrosion resistance as seen in Ti alloy (β alloy) springs that eliminate the need to anticorrosive coating or absence of
material defects and damage tolerance as in the case of low-pressure compressor and fan blades. They were a
desirable alternative to steel in such scenarios and helped eliminate aerodynamic penalties due to large structures,
reduce weight and provide corrosion resistance or improve reliability for critical systems like engines.
Nickel alloys, although weaker than Ti alloys at lower temperatures, are significantly stronger and more durable at
higher temperatures. They are used in the blades and vanes of high-pressure compressors and turbine sections.
Ti also allows easier manufacturability through cast components instead of fabrication or machining. Through Ti
casting technology, one can produce complex parts as a single piece as opposed to fabricating their components
separately. Post casting practices like HIP mitigate the disadvantages of casting especially in case of Ti alloys. Other
processes like laser additive manufacturing have led to cost savings and material wastage reduction (as much as 80%)
as an alternative for machined components which is an expensive and wasteful process. High strength Ti alloys
provide higher strength at the same weight and thus have resulted in increased gross weight for helicopters through
their use in rotors. The usage of Ti alloys have increased over time as seen from the case of Boeing 747-100 (2.6%)
and Boeing 777 (8.3%)
The improvements in Ti alloys are aimed towards damage tolerance, eliminating intrinsic material defects, durability.
Thus, the desirable material properties that are sought in ti alloys are defect free microstructure, fatigue crack growth
resistance (high cycle and low cycle) creep resistance as required for compressor rotor blades. Ti manufacturing
processes aim for elimination of porosity and microstructural defects and reduction of manufacturing cost. The main
improvements in materials were the use of high strength Ti alloys (Ti-6-4, Ti-17, and Ti-6-2-4-6) in fan and
compressor blade sections meanwhile the manufacturing processes like β forging and α + β forging have managed to
eliminate most microstructural defects. Like aluminium, different components require different desirable properties so
we use the best process that provide us the desirable mix of properties for proper operation of the given component.
Additionally, modelling of ingot solidification and billet conversion process have allowed us to identify the
parameters on which the microstructure defects depend on. Aero-elastic oscillations induced in fans are mitigated by
using various alloys that change the resonant natural frequency of the fan blades.
Improvements in Ni alloys are aimed towards increasing high temperature durability while decreasing manufacturing
costs. This in turn translates to higher oxidation resistance, thermal creep resistance and thermal fatigue resistance
being the desirable properties in material design. Manufacturing processes aim to reduce thermal creep due to grain
boundaries and cost. Thermal performance of Ni alloys was improved through introducing alloys produced through
powdered metallurgy (PM alloys) which increased the creep strength. Fatigue life was improved via using a
probabilistic analysis to predict the effects of small inclusions present in the grain structures during manufacture of
fatigue life and controlling the grain size of the alloy. Manufacturing processes like directional solidification and
mono crystallization have been helpful in mitigating thermal creep. To prevent oxidation, a thermal barrier coating
(TBC) of ceramics have been applied to turbine blades and vanes where high temperature gases tend to cause
oxidative stress on the blades. With such improvements, the operating temperature of nickel alloys were increased by
about 10% which, considering how important turbine inlet temperature is for aircraft performance and efficiency, is a
significant improvement.
4 V S Harikrishna (160010054) AE 238

Revolutionary improvements in titanium (Ti) and nickel (Ni) alloys in aircraft structures and propulsion
systems
Unlike Al based alloys, Ti and Ni based alloys are used in extremely critical components of the aircraft where it is
difficult to introduce redundancies. Thus, reliability and durability remain the prime focus of revolutionary
improvements along with cost. High reliability standards, high manufacturing costs and the need to replace existing
infrastructure has been the prime obstacle in the application of revolutionary improvements in Ti and Ni based alloys.
Some efforts have been put into developing intermetallic Ti-based compounds (Ti 3Al, Ti2AlNb and TiAl) for high
temperature applications. While these can be of use, they also have issues due to their low ductility, excessive cost and
environmental stress that have limited their introduction to the industry. In case of nickel alloys manufacturing
processes like monocrystallization and directional solidification represent the revolutionary improvements in Ni alloy
material design and manufacturing.
Conclusion
The improvement in aircraft structures due to improvements in material design and manufacturing processes have
been mostly evolutionary in nature. Revolutionary improvements are applied time to time when there is a stagnation in
the evolutionary improvements and appear only as an added value to the end customer, the exception to which being
military aerospace applications where revolutionary improvements are incorporated regularly.