Accelerated Development of New Kaiser Aluminum Aerospace Products

As Aerospace customers have been challenged with a rapidly changing market and demand for aircraft with superior materials performance, Kaiser Aluminum has expanded its investment into research and development to support these new applications.  Kaiser Research and Development is highly focused on meeting the needs of customers which includes the accelerated development of new products to meet these dynamic materials and market requirements.

Current products such as KaiserSelect® plate, rod, and bar as well as the sheet products T-form and Hi-Form have been well received and highly sought after in the aerospace market due to the decreased manufacturing costs associated with their usage.  Kaiser is now building upon that manufacturing capability with its research and development teams to create new aerospace offerings.

Numerous new products are in simultaneous development – these include 7099-T7451 and 7099-T7651 thick plate products, a new 7XXX thick section plate alloy, Al-Cu-Li sheet, plate and extrusions, and a new 7XXX extruded product.  These new KaiserSelect® products will replace the current aerospace incumbent products by offering additional strength for airframe lightweighting along with an excellent damage tolerance and corrosion balance.  The products are also being developed to minimize the acquisition costs (especially for Al-Cu-Li products) while maintaining the KaiserSelect® signature trademark of providing lower overall manufacturing costs.

This presentation will summarize these new KaiserSelect® product developments.