AIRWARETM: Light Weight Technology for Future Metallic Airframes

Future aircraft will need to offer reduced environmental impact, reduced operating cost and more comfort for passengers. In addition, leaner and faster manufacturing are required. Material choices have a significant impact on all these criteria.

In order to reduce fuel burn, future aircraft will need further weight reduction of the airframe structure. High performance alloys combined with innovative design concepts lead to 10 – 20% weight reductions compared to latest generation flying aircraft. In particular, the AIRWARE^TM technology opens a new range of opportunities. Low density alloys combined with innovative design offer not only significant performance increases, but also a positive impact on airframe maintenance. For example, compared to today’s flying materials, the use of AIRWARE^TM leads to a step change in corrosion resistance, which opens possibilities for the use of more environmentally friendly surface treatments for future aircraft. Improved damage tolerance can be exploited for maintenance interval increase or for weight reduction.

A second dimension in the evaluation of future solutions is the cost aspect which should not only cover the intrinsic cost of the material, but also the full expenditure to make the final part of the airframe. In order to reduce cost of the final part, manufacturability and optimized buy-to-fly ratios need to be taken into account. Modern assembly techniques such as friction stir welding open possibilities for cost efficient airframes. The AIRWARE^TM technology offers good weldability, so that lean processes for fully pre-assembled aircraft structures can be applied.

An overview of Alcan’s AIRWARE^TM technology will be presented including its use in advanced assembly concepts. Comparisons to today’s flying structures will be mentioned as baseline in order to better appreciate the step-change which has been made in the last decade.