What Are Alloys of Aircraft Aluminum Plates

As a relatively mature light-weight high-strength alloy material, aluminum alloy is widely used in aerospace. The aircraft aluminum plates are are generally used as structural materials, which have higher specific strength and better processing performance than steel. The aerospace field mainly develops aluminum alloy materials with high strength, high toughness and strong corrosion resistance to meet the harsh conditions of use in aerospace.

The aircraft aluminum sheet is an important component material to ensure the safe flight of aircraft. High-strength aluminum alloys with excellent performance are mainly used in aerospace and military fields, because aerospace and military products have extremely high requirements for weight reduction. Materials with high specific strength are the preferred materials for aerospace.

The application of high-strength aluminum alloys on Boeing 747 aircraft are mainly 7075T6 and 2024T3; the main aluminum alloys on Boeing 777 aircraft are 7055T77, 7150T77 and 2X24T3; the advanced aluminum alloy 7055/7449/7085/2024/6013/5076 are used on Airbus A380. The grades of aluminum alloys mainly used in the domestic large aircraft ARJ21 are 2X24, 7050, 7175, 7075, etc.

Regardless of whether it is a civil aircraft or a military aircraft, the proportion of raw materials is still dominated by the aluminum alloy. Aluminum alloys still have irreplaceable advantages in terms of material cost, process stability, and comprehensive mechanical properties.

Aluminum alloys are widely used in launch vehicles in the aerospace field. The main grades are 7075, 20X4, 2219, etc. The engine device, main body parts, rotary table, remote control parts, etc. are mainly aluminum alloy 7075.

The liquid oxygen tank is mainly made of 2219 alloy and the 20X4 is mainly used for satellite streamlined covers and temperature control valve components. In addition, the skeleton of the manned aircraft is made of 2024 and 7075 aluminum alloys, because these two aluminum alloys have high strength, light weight, and thin thickness.

The thick aircraft aluminum sheets are mainly used for the production of aircraft fuselage, wings, empennage and skin. Aluminum alloy thick plates can be divided into ingot-cast hot-rolled thick plates and cast thick plates from the production process.

The thickness of cast thick plates can basically be unlimited (the maximum thickness can reach 1.2 meters), but hot-rolled thick plates has better mechanical properties after the rolling process, so the hot-rolled thick plates are generally used in aviation products. However, the thickness of the hot-rolled thick plate cannot exceed 250mm, otherwise the cast structure cannot be completely transformed into a hot-rolled structure. 30mm aluminium plate is a popular choice.