Aluminum is one of the most widely used materials in engineering today, and with good reason. This material is one of the strongest yet lightest metals, adaptable to many different scenarios. In this article, we’ll look at some of the benefits of using this metal in a variety of engineering examples.
Aircraft
Aluminum machining is widely used in the aerospace industry, primarily for its combination of cost, strength, and low weight compared to other materials. Aluminum has been the gold standard for aircraft since the rise of monocoque aircraft in the mid-1930s, surpassing wooden aircraft.
This material is still used despite the fact that carbon fiber is making inroads in the aerospace sector. Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner aircraft is one of the first carbon fiber business jets and offers improved fuel economy through reduced weight; however, this has come at a high cost in terms of R&D and unit costs. Therefore, experts expect metal-based commercial jets to be the norm for at least 50 years as the technology improves.
Motor vehicles
Although aircraft aluminum machining is long established, it is relatively new to the automotive industry. As with jets, the reason is to improve fuel economy, but rather than move away from aluminum, it has been embraced at the expense of steel. Steel is cheap but heavy, which is why performance vehicles and sports cars began cutting weight, first with aluminum parts and later with entire bodies made of the material. These days, it’s common to find this technology in everyday road cars. BMW, for example, has used aluminum suspension parts across its range as a way to reduce unsprung weight, which improves fuel economy and handling characteristics. This is unprecedented as just ten years ago such technology was not commonly available on the road in your average family vehicle!
Railways
In the early 1960s, aluminum machining began to be used in the manufacture of various components found in train carriages, for example window frames and internal partitions. In just a couple of decades, this remarkable manufacturing material was used even more.
One of the best uses was on the French TGV Duplex, a double-decker high-speed express train. The number of passengers was increasing and this had to be accommodated by the railways. While one solution may have been to make longer trains, the French train operator SNCF opted to build double-decker trains to carry 40% more passengers on the same length of train. However, making this train out of steel would have made it extremely heavy, damaging the rails. The solution was to use aluminum machining. The result was a train that is 12% lighter than the outgoing single-deck train, but can accommodate nearly twice as many people. The lighter weight meant that a higher top speed could be achieved, cutting journey times by several percentage points, much to the relief of French commuters.
Who would have imagined that aluminum machining could lower your fuel bills and get you from Paris to Lyon faster?
