Knowledge Gained From AIRWARE™ Industrial Production and Downstream Processing Experience

Recent commercial aircraft programs such as Airbus A350XWB and Bombardier CSeries selected AIRWARE^TM technology for primary structure parts. Metal quantities per airframe are significant, so that investments were needed to respond to the market needs. Constellium switched from an ingot by ingot prototype casting technology to a specially-designed and full-scale industrial AIRWARE^TM cast house.

Industrial quantities of sheets, plates and extrusions have been delivered for the two major commercial aircraft programs and for other customers, including space applications for example. Statistical data are available showing robustness and improvements compared to initial standards. The intrinsically good fundamental properties including fatigue, fatigue crack growth or corrosion can now be demonstrated on significant data sets covering a large thickness range up to 6.5”.

In order to reach challenging design goals, not only density reduction needs to be considered, also ambitious strength-toughness balances should be targeted. A robust industrial production allows implementation of reliable minimum values.

One of the major advantages of the AIRWARE^TM technology is that it is consistent with existing manufacturing routes. Large numbers of sheets, plates and extrusions have undergone customer processes such as forming, surface treatment or machining. Industrial experience on downstream processing AIRWARE^TM is becoming substantial, with numerous downstream data now available.

The AIRWARE^TM low density alloys allow a 100% recycling loop, minimizing the environmental footprint. Also from a cost point of view, the full recycling loop has great interest for the customer. In close customer collaborations, win-win situations can be generated for the supplier and the airframer for competitive business cases.

An overview of Constellium‘s AIRWARE^TM technology applications with industrial data will be presented. Comparisons to today’s flying structures will be mentioned as a baseline in order to better appreciate the step-change which has been made in the last decade.