Aluminum alloy has the characteristics of light weight, high strength, corrosion resistance, and easy processing, and has a wide range of applications in various industries, such as decoration, electronic appliances, mobile phone accessories, computer accessories, mechanical equipment, aerospace, transportation, military and other fields. Below we will focus on the application of aluminum alloys in the aerospace industry.

 
In 1906, Wilm, a German, accidentally found that the strength of aluminum alloy will gradually increase with the time of placing after a certain period of time at room temperature. This phenomenon later became known as time hardening and attracted widespread attention as one of the core technologies that first promoted the development of aviation aluminum alloy material technology. In the following hundred years, aviation aluminum workers conducted in-depth research on aluminum alloy composition and synthesis methods, material processing techniques such as rolling, extrusion, forging, and heat treatment, manufacturing and processing of aluminum alloy parts, characterization and improvement of material structure and service performance.

 
Aluminum alloys used in the aviation industry are commonly referred to as aviation aluminum alloys, which have a series of advantages such as high specific strength, good processing and formability, low cost, and good maintainability. They are widely used as materials for aircraft main structures. The increasing design requirements for flight speed, structural weight reduction, and stealth of the next generation of advanced aircraft in the future greatly enhance the requirements for the specific strength, specific stiffness, damage tolerance performance, manufacturing cost, and structural integration of aviation aluminum alloys.

Aviation aluminum material

 
Below are examples of the specific uses of several grades of aviation aluminum alloys. 2024 aluminum plate, also known as 2A12 aluminum plate, has high fracture toughness and low fatigue crack propagation rate, making it the most commonly used material for aircraft fuselage and wing lower skin.

 
7075 aluminum plate was successfully developed in 1943 and was the first practical 7xxx aluminum alloy. It was successfully applied to B-29 bombers. 7075-T6 aluminum alloy had the highest strength among aluminum alloys at that time, but its resistance to stress corrosion and peel corrosion was poor.

 
7050 aluminum plate is developed on the basis of 7075 aluminum alloy, which has achieved better comprehensive performance in strength, anti peeling corrosion and stress corrosion resistance, and has been applied to the compressive components of F-18 aircraft. 6061 aluminum plate is the earliest 6XXX series aluminum alloy used in aviation, which has good corrosion resistance and excellent welding performance, but its strength is moderate to low.