New ARALL Development Offers Promising Potential for Aircraft Design Available to Purchase

Initial work on aramid aluminium laminates (ARALL) was done by Professor L. B. Vogelesang and his co‐workers at the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. ARALL is now being commercialized by Alcoa and 3M. This was stimulated by Vogelesang's early work which showed the adhesively bonded laminate of high strength isotropic aluminium sheet and fatigue and fracture resistant aramid fibres provides superior specific strengths and fatigue resistance. The fatigue crack growth characteristics are such that cracks will not propagate in ARALL under normal loading conditions.