Aviation without aluminium is literally unimaginable

An aircraft in the making

When an aircraft designer embarks on a plan to make a plane, there are a million things which come at play. However, everything else falls into place around three main conditions – a light weight body, a rust free durable frame, and high fuel efficiency. A metal that checks all the boxes is Aluminium.

Aluminium used in plane body

Aluminum makes up for about 80% of the modern aircraft. An alloy, known as Duralumin, was later developed by a German aircraft designer who showed its remarkable properties. The alloy if treated with heat for a long time would eventually become stronger than aluminium, a process known as distressing. Since then aluminium has found its way from wing panes to exhaust pipes in the aircraft. The cockpit panels, passenger seats and even the interior of the engine turbines employ aluminium in one form or the other.

Let us know a few alloys which find use in aviation. There are specific series of aluminum alloys which are classified as follows:

2xxx series: This high-strength aluminum alloy is the most common one. Typical uses are aircraft skins, hoods, structures, and for repair and restoration because of its shiny finish. E.g.: 2024-T3 Alclad aluminum sheet.
3xxx series: Pure aluminum with manganese added for strength. This alloy is non heat treatable i.e. cannot be distressed. It is widely used for hoods and baffle plating (a mechanical device designed to restrain or regulate the flow of a fluid). E.g.: 3003-H14
5xxx series: It has the highest strength in the non heatable alloys and has brilliant corrosion resistance. It is commonly used to make fuel tanks E.g.: 5052 aluminum sheet.
7xxx series: It is the strongest of all aluminium alloys and comparable to steel, however it weighs only a third of what steel weighs. It is used in hydraulics, lubrication and fuel systems. E.g.: 7075 alloy.

Aircraft design is as much about safety as it is about flair and performance. The use of riveted sheets ensure that even if the plane gets damaged, the plane will continue to function with minimal issues. Carbon fibers are an alternative to the light weight of aluminum but are a dud in safety.

Live rocket boosters

Even in spaceflights, aluminium is used in making compact rocket boosters. Powdered ammonium perchlorate is an excellent oxidizer which is used in the first stage of spaceflight. Just to cite an example, the world's most powerful launch vehicle - Saturn-5, capable of carrying 140 tonnes of load into orbit, burns through 36 tonnes of aluminium powder in the time it takes to reach earth’s orbit. That means it loses nearly a quarter of its weight as it launches into space.

Aluminium’s history in aviation is quite exquisite. The Wright Brothers used it in their first flight – the Flier-1 aircraft. Even before this flight took off, Ferdinand von Zeppelin had built a colossal airship in which he had promoted the use of the light weight property of aluminium.

A Zeppelin airship

Pioneering space missions by adept countries will rely heavily on the metal of the future. The applications are immense and we have only scratched the surface.

A fighter plane

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