Materials in the Aircraft Industry

Abstract

Modern-day, self-propelled, heavier-than-air flight traces its roots back to 1903 when the Wright brothers remained in air for 12 s in Kitty Hawk, NC. Just 30 years later, the Douglas Company introduced the 12-passenger twin-engine DC-1 and Boeing introduced the 247, a 10-passenger, all-metal twin-engine aircraft with a retractable landing gear; soon thereafter, the era of jet engines was ushered in. About 60 years later, in the 1990s, Boeing introduced the 777, the biggest twin-engine jet ever to fly and the first aircraft to be produced using computer-aided design and engineering! Now, aircrafts like the superjumbo Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 carry more than a billion passengers each year around the world. This dramatic advance in passenger flight is filled with inventions, innovative designs, new and novel materials and technology advancements, accidents, and lessons learned. Driven by societal needs, economy, government regulations, and more, materials and components design, process development, property assessment, and life prediction have all been central to these advances. In this chapter, we follow this fascinating thread by focusing on materials and technology development for aircraft fuselage and aircraft engine over time.