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Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 9:30 AM
SPF1.3

Aluminum Tube Pre-Forms in Superplastic Forming Manufacturing

F. S. Pitt, The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA

Traditional Superplastic Forming utilizes flat sheet blanks to make production parts. Certain applications lend themselves to starting with a tube shape. The Outboard Light Housing on the Boeing 737 NG Airplane is a long, slender part that is enclosed at the aft end. A tube preform was the most appropriate shape to use in fabricating this part. This paper describes meeting the requirements for the part and how the tube was fabricated, preformed and superplastically formed to replace the original cast Outboard Light Housing. Challenges in superplastically forming and additional opportunities for improvement are addressed. This is a new production application of Aluminum SPF, and started flying on the 737 NG in early 2003.