Which country produces the most harmful substances for aircraft production. And why not titanium anyway?

We have recently already considered the structure of aircraft engines of modern passenger aircraft. In the process of writing that material, I had a number of questions that can be solved in one big one.

What is the body of the plane made of? Metal? Which one? How is it produced? Where is the raw material mined? And why was aluminum chosen for the body? Let’s try to figure this out.

Briefly

• Why not Titan?
  What is aircraft grade aluminum
  How and where is aluminum mined?
  Conclusions

An airplane can be made of titanium, but there is a nuance.

Lockheed SR-71 – an aircraft made entirely of titanium. The project was closed due to high production costs

The first and most important question is – why aluminum? It is possible to make the casing, for example, from titanium, this metal is much stronger.

The reasoning is logical, but there is a nuance – Titanium is much heavier. The lighter the plane, the greater the load it can lift into the air. For this purpose, the first planes in history were made of wood and plywood models.

An airplane made entirely of titanium would be much better to manufacture and operate. To get such a machine into the air, you would need to make more powerful engines and carry more fuel.

All this inevitably reduces the flight range. And all these costs fall on the shoulders of passengers to see more expensive tickets. The same applies to the steel itself. In any case, it will be heavy and expensive.

This is why modern aircraft manufacturing uses so-called “aircraft aluminum.” This metal is easy to process, has anti-corrosion properties, is fairly cheap, and is very light.

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What is aircraft grade aluminum

Let’s start with the basic characteristics. It is a light metal of silvery-white color, occupying the 13th place in the periodic table of the main elements created by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev.

Aluminum has a number of outstanding properties: it is paramagnetic, easy to cast, mold and cut, resistant to corrosion, has high electrical and thermal conductivity. Today, it is one of the most common structural materials.

One of the best materials today is the 7075-T6 aluminum alloy, also known as 7075 T6-Aluminum. This complex was first developed by the Japanese company Sumitomo Metal in 1943 for the production of combat aircraft.

However, in its original form, aluminum is quite soft, and parts made from it do not have high strength. To improve performance, manufacturers include various additives and give alloys different hardness. Such products look light, purely aluminum, but are much stronger.

“Aircraft aluminum” is a general name for several types of alloys that were used in different countries around the world.

For example, duralumin is used to make gliders that use low aerodynamic heating. This high-strength alloy is exposed to copper, manganese and magnesium. For glider elements that are exposed to high temperatures and for the power elements of the aircraft frame, alloys with increased heat resistance and the addition of magnesium were used.

These alloys are also used to create some engine components that operate under moderate heating conditions. These include blades, impellers, and primary compressor disks.

Aluminum alloys with the addition of silicon are used for casting parts of a solid form that are not subject to heavy loads. These alloys have high fluidity and workability in a heated state.

They are used to produce brackets, levers, flanges. They are also used to manufacture some engine parts, such as compressor housings and crankcases.

Even within this complex mechanism there is enough attention

Important note: The aircraft cannot be completely manufactured due to observation. Its parts, for example, the main elements of passenger aircraft such as the nose of the fuselage, engine pylons, wing leading edges, slats, as well as the landing gear, are usually made of titanium.

However, to discount the weight of the structure, the titanium content of the aircraft is no more than 20% from the total weight.

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How and where is aluminum mined?

Bauxite is a rock that contains hydroxides of action.

So, we are the authors of what aluminum is used in aircraft construction. But the question remains: where does it come from? “Aircraft aluminum” is a combination of conventional wisdom and progress. Let’s find out what path ordinary aluminum takes before becoming “aircraft aluminum”.

The observed part of the world reserves is in the earth’s core. In addition, parts of this metal are in both fresh and sea water, although in very small quantities. It is impossible to be aluminum by smelting ore, like iron – this requires more complex processing methods.

It all starts with the extraction of bauxite, a rock containing oxide. The largest reserves of bauxite are in Guinea, accounting for 28.4% of the total. Guinea is followed by Brazil, Jamaica, Guinea, India, and Australia. Most often, bauxite mining requires the use of mines, as the rock is not always found close to the surface.

Mine “Cheremukhovskaya-Glubokaya”. It is located in the Sverdlovsk region of the Russian Federation. Its depth is more than 1.5 kilometers.

The next stage of production is the processing of mined bauxite into alumina. Alumina is an oxide that looks like a white, free-flowing powder. The processing is carried out using the Bayer method. It includes three stages:

✔️ CrushingThe bauxites are broken into smaller pieces and ground.
✔️ LeachingThe ground oxide is dissolved in concentrated alkali.
✔️ DecompositionAs a result of this form, individual precipitators.

The result is a powder like this

The final stages of production are electrolysis and obtaining clean air. First, alumina is placed in a bath of molten cryolite and exposed to a powerful discharge.

As a result, aluminum is separated from oxygen and settles to the bottom of the container. It is extracted and purified from impurities. Special vacuum boilers are used for this, and purification is carried out by chlorination – blowing with a chloride solution. In this way, we obtain high-quality aluminum.

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Conclusions

The final stage of production was affected

In summary, we figured out why aluminum was used to make airplanes, what distinguishes regular aluminum from aviation aluminum, and most importantly, how it is produced.

I hope this was interesting and now you know more. Thanks for reading, have a nice day!