FIBER METAL LAMINATES - AN ADVANCED MATERIAL FOR FUTURE AIRCRAFT

Fiber Metal Laminates (FML) consist of thin, high strength aluminium a lloy sheets alternately bonded to plies of fiber-reinforced epoxy adhe sive. They provide an ideal combination of metals and composites that results in a material, which combines the best features of organic mat rix composites and metals, without sharing their individual disadvanta ges. FML offer substantial weight savings relative to current metallic structures. Further, the number of parts required to build a componen t may be dramatically less than the number of parts needed to construc t the same component of metal alloy. This can lead to labour savings, sometimes offsetting the higher price of the present materials. These features, together with superior fatigue behaviour, damage tolerant pr operties, inherent resistance to corrosion, good fire resistance for s afety improvement, make FML very attractive candidate materials for fu ture aircraft structures [1-3]. Later a new concept apply on this hybr id material: Fiber-Metal Laminates with Splice or Spliced Laminates. T he development of spliced laminates has been a logical step after the identification of the favorable behavior of FML. Spliced laminates may provide a good solution obtaining substantially increased dimensions of spliced products. The splicing concept offers the same benefit (20 - 50% weight savings) as for a regular FML panel. but for much wider p anels (>4 meters). This increased width capability can result in a sig nificant reduction in manufacturing cost. These attributes make splice d laminates promising candidates for fuselage and lower wing materials for the next generation of Very Large Civil Transport (VLCT) aircraft and the Ultra High Capacity Aircraft (UHCA) for 600 to 800 passengers [4].