SAE Aerospace conference: Redundancy by design through manufacturing innovation to bypass resource scarcity

I thank the society of automotive engineers for organising the second annual Aerospace Materials & Manufacturing Summit, to discuss the material challenges that the aerospace and defense industry is currently facing and some of the new opportunities that have arisen due to innovation in materials manufacturing and processing.

As someone who deeply cares about material science it was a great opportunity for me to listen to the experts in the aerospace industry and learn about their thought process prior to materials selection. I also think that this is a great initiative by SAE that will foster a deeper engagement with material engineers.

Aircraft impose severe constraints on materials as they have to be tough,strong and lightweight. Unsurprisingly Aluminum alloys and fiber composites dominate due to their unique combination of properties that align well with the requirements of aerospace. Titanium,Tungsten and Nickel alloys are used in engines and turbines due to their ability to maintain their strength at high temperatures.

These high performance materials do come at a cost of complicated processing. Therefore, I was very keen to listen to the discussion on electrochemical grinding and micro blasting for precision material removal required for part shaping and for creating micrometer level tolerances and shot peening for improvement in crack resistance and enhancement of fatigue life.

Sealing is another big challenge and I learnt a lot from the presentation by omniseal group on how exactly they develop solutions to enable sealing and minimise friction and wear of components.

The section on laser technologies for welding and cutting emphasized just how advanced aerospace materials manufacturing has become.

However the event also highlighted some of the details that are overlooked by technology enthusiasts. For example how supply chains are affected by geopolitics. The titanium,tungsten and nickel alloys used in aerospace components for example are dominated by China, Indonesia and Russia which has caused some concern among nations in the west especially as trade is increasingly being weaponised to gain political leverage.

I learnt that the US defense budget could be raised to $1.5T but where would that capital be allocated? Experts have different opinions on this matter but the strongest move here is to create redundancy and build alternative tooling and techniques that bypass material dependency. One can't magically make minerals like Ni or Ti appear. There may be certain unexplored deposits and it's true that new mining sites are being constructed in Canada and AU but even those would be limited in output and face demand from other sectors (EV for example).

It is possible to build aircrafts with abundant components. De havilland proved this with wood based aircrafts both for defense and commercial uses. Material advancement today especially with the development of ceramic matrix composites and sandwich structures make it possible for us to manufacture materials that are tougher than wood ,yet suffer none of the disadvantages associated with it like moisture induced rotting or dimensional instability.

These materials made out of common Sio2 or carbon based fibers offer a massive advantage with the tradeoff that the aircrafts would never be able to match the absolute raw power of modern machines. Yes we won't be able to build a 200 seater 80 Mega Watt plane. But we can absolutely build hundreds of 200 Kilowatt 6 seater planes. It has been done before. It can be done again.

Do you care about international relations? Would you like to be a part of a non profit that seeks to foster international collaboration? Partner with us & use your skills in Science/Engineering/Research/Team Building/Consulting/Administration/Law/PR/Comms/Business to shape the future. Let's do this.

ABOUT bhū

bhū is a self funded non profit organisation dedicated to advancement of science and promotion of international relations.

We aim to promote international harmony through creation of specific councils and bodies for regulating and overseeing international issues and accelerate developments in nanotechnology, material science ,electrostatics, fluids, plasma science,thermodynamics and advanced manufacturing.

Let us work together

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Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Materials science/International relations/Partnerships

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Akshat Jiwan Sharma

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