Aircraft materials - Aluminium 2024-T3 or 2024-T4 what the difference?

A package of structural modification drawings was sent to the MOA or part-145 maintenance organization to be applied to aircraft. After some hours, the maintenance engineering asked me the following: can I change the material requested in the drawings? For example the 2024-T3 by the 2024-T4. The typical structure of and aircraft is made 65% of aluminum alloys. The aluminum alloys used are the 2xxx series and 7xxx series. From the 2xxx series the 2024 is the king, used in 85% of the cases. The property that make the 2024 invincible in aircraft application is the fatigue and damage tolerance properties. 7xxx alloys are used where strength is required, for fittings, bulkheads, beams, frames or splices. The most commons alloys used are the 7075, 7050, 7475.Then the 2024 alloys is for fatigue application, where? In fatigue critical structures, the skin, frames, skin splices, pressure bulkheads, lower wing panels, etc. All structural parts with fatigue issues must use fatigue material the 2024. The letter T after the alloys defines the heat treatment of the material. In this case you can find the 2024 in the T3, T4, or T42. There are others treatments but this is the most commons used. The T3 means that part was heat treated, cold worked and naturally aged. T4 means heat treated, and naturally aged. The difference is that T4 has no cold work. A special treatment where the plate is compressed cold, and the material crystals in the surface of the plate become more attached to each others, increasing the strength required to separate them. This property increases the fatigue and damage tolerance life of the plate. The cracks will have more difficulty to penetrate in the plate. The T42 heat treatment is applied to existing heat treatments -O, T3 or T4, this treatment is applied by the final user and not by material manufacturer. That means if we use a -O, T3 or T4 plate and apply a heat treatment with natural aging to them because of manufacturing propose, the final temper will be T42.

Can you replace a 2024-T3 plate by a 2024-T4 plate the answer is no. The T3 as better fatigue properties. If you replace the material you are reducing the fatigue life of the part. The Design Office has made all calculation for fatigue and damage tolerance an if they are using T3 is because is the better material for that particular case. If you need to change, because of logistics problems please, please request authorization to the Design Office to change the material. They will check the calculation and see that the fatigue life reduction is still safe for the aircraft. Is not only the fatigue that is different, the strength of the material is also different, T4 as lower strength than T3 than the margin of safety for ultimate strength can also be different and this must be checked by the Design Office. Imagine MS=0.09 with T3 but changing to T4 the result can be MS=0.01 and this only the calculation people can check that.