Assessment of Airware® technology for enhanced fuselage structures

With the new societal and environmental pressure, future aircraft generations should provide a high performance level with a low level of CO2 emission and a good recyclability. For airframes, this translates into a significant mass saving, an easier maintenance with shortened inspection intervals and a decreased sensitivity to corrosion. Such an improvement can be achieved with new optimized aluminum alloys.

Current metallic fuselage and nose fuselage are mainly made of legacy 2xxx and 7xxx aluminum alloys which require enhanced mechanical properties to achieve the ambitious sustainability targets.

Enhanced Airware® technology based on Aluminium-Lithium sheets is proposed by Constellium. The lower density and the improved mechanical properties lead to significant weight reductions. The excellent corrosion resistance allows the use of bare material, which leads to manufacturing benefits. High ductile metallurgical tempers are other levers to be considered to reduce cost of the entire solution to be considered.

CONSTELLIULM and STELIA Aerospace have assessed this new aluminum alloy for the manufacturing of fuselage panels in cylindrical and double curvature areas. This study includes mechanical and corrosion assessment, mass saving assessment, stretch forming simulation and optimization, milling trial and welding with friction stir welding by always considering the global solution at the panel or even barrel level.

A scale 1:1 demonstrator of nose fuselage stiffened panel has been realized to demonstrate the potential of this technology.

Keywords: Aluminum Lithium, Stretch forming, FSW, Typical fuselage, Nose fuselage