The Challenge of New Materials in the Aerospace Industry

This year ASM celebrates 100 years as an organization and 100 years as a key technical society for the materials engineer.   Flight has been around for just over 100 years and Boeing just under 100 years.  These three facts have a common link; the conception, maturation, design and manufacture of products with high performance materials.   Today materials are revolutionizing many products (sporting equipment, boats, cars and airplanes) by enabling breakthrough performance and efficiency.  Nowhere is it more apparent than in the aerospace industry which continues to be at the forefront in implementation new materials.  These high performance materials have posed tough challenges for design, materials & process and manufacturing engineers.  Today we build on 100 years of experience and rely on cutting edge technologies to solve challenges such as predicting material properties and environmental effects, reducing the length of qualification and certification, improving the first time quality and scaling of manufacturing processes, and enabling the simultaneous design for cost, producibility and performance.   By solving these challenges, we will continue to produce incredible products with breakthrough cost and performance.