Effect of Thermal Exposure on the Tensile Properties of Aluminum Alloys for Elevated Temperature Service

Tensile properties were evaluated for four aluminum alloys that are candidates for airframe applications on high speed transport aircraft. These alloys included the Al-Cu-Mg-Ag alloys C415 and C416 and the Al-Cu-Li-Mg-Ag alloys RX818 and ML377. The Al-Cu-Mg alloys CM001, which was used on the Concorde SST, and 1143, which was modified from the alloy used on the TU144 Russian supersonic aircraft, were tested for comparison. The alloys were subjected to thermal exposure at 200 F, 225 F and 275 F for times up to 30,000 hours. Tensile tests were performed on thermally-exposed and as-received material at -65 F, room temperature, 200 F, 225 F and 275 F. All four candidate alloys showed significant tensile property improvements over CM001 and 1143. Room temperature yield strengths of the candidate alloys were at least 20% greater than for CM001 and 1143, for both the as-received and thermally-exposed conditions. The strength levels of alloy RX818 were the highest of all materials investigated, and were 5-10% higher than for ML377, C415 and C416 for the as-received condition and after 5,000 hours thermal exposure. RX818 was removed from this study after 5,000 hours exposure due to poor fracture toughness performance observed in a parallel study. After 30,000 hours exposure at 200 F and 225 F, the alloys C415, C416 and ML377 showed minor decreases in yield strength, tensile strength and elongation when compared to the as-received properties. Reductions in tensile strength from the as-received values were up to 25% for alloys C415, C416 and ML377 after 15,000 hours exposure at 275 F.