Main Title
Customer Solutions
Plates, Sheets and Machining : The Backbone of Aerospace Construction
The design of modern aircraft increasingly favors the use of ever larger and thicker plates, as high-speed machining allows cost and weight efficient structures to be produced directly by integral machining, substituting the traditional assembly of sheet and light gauge plate and stiffeners.
At Alcan Global Aerospace, plates can be produced in a large variety of standard alloys and tempers. To meet customers’ needs even more effectively, Alcan Global Aerospace has developed the new plate alloys 7040, 7140, 7449, 7056, 2027, 2024A, and AIRWARETM 2050, 2297 and 2195.
Increasing complexity in the design of metallic or hybrid aircraft structures also requires the use of ever larger plates. We supply them to our customers either as bare plate or semi-finished (i.e. rough-machined parts).
The rolling mills of Alcan Global Aerospace provide unique capabilities to cover a large range of plate dimensions and also meet differing prefabrication requirements:
The maximum available length of 36 m and width up to 3.8 m allow the processing and delivery of giant cut-to-shape and pre-machined aircraft wing panels, while the max. available thickness of 254 mm enables the production of wide and very heavy gauge plates, especially suited for the manufacturing of spars and ribs.
Reducing Buy-To-Fly Metal Costs Through Advanced Machining
During the typical manufacturing process from plate to finished part, about 90% of the metal is removed as scrap, either in large pieces or chips. This scrap is recycled at the plants of Alcan Global Aerospace.
Our advanced machining capabilities are based on a full range of equipment for:
- Surface machining
- Boring, drilling
- Contouring cut-to-shape (2.5 D) parts
- Milling and pocketing on 3-axes machines using CAM CATIA software
- Finish machining on very large wing skin panels
Large dimensional capabilities:
- up to 3100 mm wide
- up to 36 m long
The Alcan Global Aerospace machining center offers our customers the opportunity to reduce their costs and optimize their sourcing by minimizing the buy-to-fly ratio.
Sheet
Alcan Global Aerospace produces a wide range of sheet alloy and temper qualities for specific applications. Most of the solutions can be offered bare or clad, depending on the customers’ requirements. Chemical milling, Minimum Residual Stress and SPF qualities are also available.