Novel Wing Cover Solutions for Commercial Aircraft

Major OEMs are enhancing their product portfolios with a series of predominantly metallic airframe derivative aircraft models aimed at extracting further potential performance gains before launching further new high-investment programmes. Constellium has been collaborating closely with its major customers to ensure that the next generation of AIRWARE Al-Cu-Li alloys are ready for large-scale industrialization on these derivative programmes within the next five to ten years. In particular, Constellium has been developing a suite of AIRWARE® wingskin alloys providing robust improvements across the property range and for which there is comprehensive characterization data available in preparation to support near-term deployment on soon-to-launch major new derivative programmes. Moreover, Constellium is also preparing wing materials and enabling joining and production technology concepts in advance of future all-new programmes that will undoubtedly feature in the longer term. This presentation will cover the potential offered by both these development themes for commercial wing applications.