Fracture Toughness Characterization of Aluminum

The use of aluminum in structural engineering applications continues to grow. Due to its lightweight properties, aluminum is of interest to designers of automobiles and aircraft. Supplying markets, such as aerospace manufacturing, places stringent demands on the test protocol of the primary material producer. In the air, material failure is not an option. Replacing steel components with aluminum leads to weight gains of around 40% to 50%, even allowing for the lower inherent strength of the material. In addition, aluminum has excellent corrosion properties, and can be recycled efficiently.

 

A global primary producer of aluminum that supplies materials to the world’s leading aircraft manufacturers, uses our 8801 Series testing systems to certify the fracture toughness of the materials after production. The systems are combined with 2750 Series fracture mechanics grips and run our Fracture Toughness software to automate the process.