Advanced Metallic Fuselage Alloy Development

Alcoa alloy 2029 is a silver containing aluminum-copper-magnesium alloy developed for advanced metallic fuselage applications.  The alloy is being developed in three unique tempers, two of which provide material property improvements compared to the incumbent alloy, alclad 2524-T3, and one temper that provides enhanced manufacturing capability.

Alclad 2029-T8E98 displays comparable fatigue crack growth performance to that of alclad 2524-T3 while offering significant improvements in strength and fracture toughness.  Furthermore, the core corrosion behavior of the 2029-T8E98 product is superior to that of 2524-T3, an advantage in applications where the fuselage sheet is pocketed to reduce component weight which removes the cladding.

Alclad 2029-T3E49 is a naturally aged end use product with comparable strength and toughness to that of alclad 2524-T3, but offers a significant improvement in fatigue crack growth behavior.  The same manufacturing steps can be used for alclad 2029-T3E49 as are currently used for alclad 2524-T3, and the corrosion behavior is similar for the two alloys.

The 2029-T3E39 product offers an improvement in formability over that of 2524-T3, making it an attractive product for stretch forming applications such as double-curvature panels.  After forming the panels the customers would age the product to the T82 condition to take advantage of the improved strength and toughness of the T8 product over that of alclad 2524-T3.