Aluminium and Aircraft Engineering: The Third of a Series of Articles Describing the Materials Used in Aircraft Construction

ALUMINIUM alloys have been important structural materials in aircraft from very early days, and there is no doubt that the course of aeronautical development would have been very different without them. It would be pointless to review the classification of these alloys and their respective fields of application in quite the same way as was done in the two previous articles of this series, those on titanium and magnesium. The aircraft industry has used many of the traditional alloys for years, and is highly familiar with their possibilities and limitations. In this article we shall outline, in the first place, the extent of present alloy development, giving some special attention to matters of particular aeronautical significance, and then limit further consideration to certain specific types of alloy which, for one reason or another, are the most promising as well as being the most difficult to use successfully in aircraft structures. These alloys are all of the high‐strength precipitation‐hardening type.