Assessment of the ability of conventional and advanced wrought aluminum alloys for mechanical performance in light-weight applications

A concept to assess the ability of advanced wrought aluminum alloys for mechanical performance in light-weight structures by involving quality indices is introduced. The involved quality index QD has been originally suggested to evaluate the quality of aircraft aluminum alloys, by conjuncting tensile strength and ductility of the alloys in a single quantity and accounting also for the material’s scatter in mechanical properties. The methodology is extended such as to account also for the material’s density. The introduced specific quality index QDS is exploited to evaluate and rank, according to their quality, a number of existing wrought aluminum alloys from the 2xxx, 6xxx, 7xxx and 8xxx series, which are widely used in aircraft structures. Advanced aluminum alloys from the 2xxx and 6xxx series, newly developed for aircraft structural applications are also characterized and their potential for mechanical performance is compared against the mechanical performance provided by the respective conventional alloys.