Hybrid Metal Laminate (HML) Manufacturing Planning Evaluation and Assessment Last Updated 2008/12/19

Charles Pitzer and Jenn Ming Yang Department of Materials Science and Engineering University of California Los Angeles, 90095

I.

Introduction

Even though European manufacturers have already incorporated glass-epoxy-aluminum hybrid laminates into existing aircraft namely, the Airbus A380 a number of hurdles impede the adoption of these advanced materials in the United States. The current US industrial sector for producing this next-generation material is still in its infancy and is capable of only limited production runs of secondary structure components. Few US aircraft manufacturers are seriously considering use of hybrid laminates due to the extensive research and development, capital investment, and FAA certification costs. In short, the US is far behind European suppliers and aircraft manufacturers in manufacturing capabilities, design standards, analysis techniques, QA testing standards, in-service NDE testing, FAA qualification, and flight history with respect to hybrid fiber metal laminates.

This paper will provide an assessment of the current industrial sectors hybrid fiber metal laminate manufacturing capability within the United States based on existing companies with HML production histories. Next, well evaluate the hurdles to transitioning the technology to a production ready stage and the feasibility of doing so. Finally, well provide a future effort roadmap to the development of HML to enable it to be a viable competitor to incumbent AL alloy technologies and other next-generation AL alloys throughout the aircraft industry.

FIGURE 1. Fatigue crack growth rates of aluminum 2024-T3 and some hybrid metal laminates. Reference [5].

II.

Background

Fiber-reinforced metal laminates (FML) are hybrid composites consisting of alternating thin layers of metal sheets and fiber-reinforced epoxy prepreg. The most commonly used metal for FML is aluminum, and the fibers can be Kevlar or glass. In Europe, FML with glass fibers (tradename GLARE), and Kevlar fibers (tradename ARALL) have been employed in new applications for aircraft structures. These laminates possess some of the most desirable properties of both metal and fibrous composite materials. These hybrids exhibit a number of major advantages over conventional AL alloy structural materials. Most importantly, this family of fiber metal laminates (FML) results in an ability to impede and arrest crack growth caused by cyclic loading that is significantly better than all materials currently on the market - and even surpasses high-fatigue Li-Al alloys that are currently in development. Figure 1 shows the relative fatigue life performance of similar thickness specimens of hybrid metal laminates and their monolithic aluminum counterparts. Most striking is the almost linear crack growth progression of the hybrid metal laminate specimen versus the exponential crack growth progression of the monolithic aluminum. The catastrophic rate of crack growth in the monolithic AL alloy is what leads to the large burden of scheduled inspections, airframe repair, and special inspections (currently ~37% of USAF man-hours
13

). In 2006, the USAF spent 87 percent more on aircraft maintenance than it did in 1996,

while fleet availability has declined 13. Clearly, this is an accelerating problem. On the other hand, even after a detectable crack is discovered in hybrid metal-glass fiber laminates, there are a number of more opportunities to discover and repair this defect

before catastrophic failure occurs - allowing for a significant increase in inspection intervals and depot maintenance schedules.

Contrary to other "pure" laminated composites, the impact damage tolerance of hybrid metal-glass fiber laminates are at least as good as monolithic aluminum alloys at low velocities. For higher velocity impacts, hybrid metal-glass fiber laminates outperform aluminum due to the strain rate effect and the increased strain hardening effect caused by the glass fibers.

Corrosion resistance is enhanced by preventing through-thickness corrosion modes. The prepreg layers act as moisture barriers between the various inner aluminum layers, whereas the metal layers protect the fiber/epoxy layers from picking up moisture. The aluminum layers also prevent UV radiation from degrading the glass-epoxy layer. Given that these aluminum layers are much thinner than the conventional aluminum sheet that is currently used, the quenching step in the tempering process occurs much faster - allowing for less diffusion of alloying elements to the grain boundaries than in the thicker sheets thus resulting in even more corrosion resistance 8. Machine design article: 5% of all metal products are lost due to corrosion each year. FMLs improve corrosion resistance.

Even though some specialized tooling and processing with fiber metal laminates will be necessary, many of the same material handling and construction techniques used in monolithic metals can be applied. Milling, drilling, sawing, joining, etc. are similar to

conventional practices for metals. Conventional lay-up methods for single-sided molds for vacuum-forming are also directly applicable to HML lay-ups. Furthermore, this material can be produced as sheet material, but it also can be cured in an autoclave as a complete structure, e.g. a large curved panel with co-cured doublers and stiffening elements. As a result, The HMLs are also attractive hybrid materials for light-weight, fatigue critical large-scale structural applications.

Finally, lower weight leads to the so-called snow ball effect. If, for an equivalent section, we can use a material that can even fractionally reduce weight, then less lift needs to be generated, which reduces drag, which leads to less fuel consumption, thus compounding further weight reductions. Conversely, existing aircraft can be retrofitted to allow for larger payloads or longer flights possibly increasing the capabilities of existing aging aircraft to handle larger burdens.

Hybrid fiber metal laminates can be tailored to suit a variety of applications by varying the fiber/resin system, the alloy type and thickness, stacking sequence, fiber orientation, surface pretreatment technique, etc. The commercially available product forms of GLARE laminates and their density are summarized in Table A. The density of the GLARE laminates depends on the relative thickness of aluminum sheet and glass fiber/epoxy layers, the number of layers in the laminate and the fiber volume fraction. In all cases, the density of GLARE laminate is at least 8% lower than aluminum alloy.

Reference [2] A patent on Glare was filed on October 14, 1987 by AKZO with Roebroeks and Vogelesang as inventors. A partnership between AKZO and ALCOA started to operate in 1991 to produce and commercialize Glare. A formal agreement to form the Structural Laminates Company (SLC), a joint venture of AKZO (1/3 owner) and ALCOA (2/3 owner), was signed on June 1, 1991. The agreement provided for production to be concentrated in New Kensington, PA, while the research, development and marketing would be done in Delft. For this reason, a separate company, a subsidiary of SLC with the name Structural Laminates-bv was founded in the Netherlands, headed by Gunnink.

III.

Current Industrial Sector Assessment

Major hurdles do exist, however. In order to meet the market demand for a commercial airliner, manufacturing capacity would need to be significantly expanded upon. Processing of thin AL sheet, large scale production and handling of glass-epoxy prepreg, automated layup, curing, and inspection processes would all need to be developed with a significant capital investment. Perhaps more importantly, though, the material must be

thoroughly qualified for aerospace service. This is an expensive and time consuming endeavor that requires a compelling reason to proceed with.

For each flavor of glass-epoxy FML, hundreds of specimens from different production runs will need to be tested for tensile strength, compression strength, shear strength, fatigue strength, etc. Statistical variation must be characterized to anticipate any scatter in performance. Each flavor of glass-epoxy FML can include variations in the ingredients of metal layers (thickness, work hardening, temper, surface treatment), fibers, adhesive, autoclave cycle, and the stretching process after the cure. All of these variations must be carefully considered and controlled.

Since qualification of the material is started when it is clear that the material will be applied in design, this leads to the chicken before the egg problem. Designers are not inclined to design structures from materials that are not yet qualified. Nobody will commit to qualify a material that has no impending design to propel the process. Plus, there is no guarantee that the properties that have been reported for these materials can be reproduced on a large commercial scale without significant opportunity for scatter in those property values. Therefore, nothing happens.

The following discussion details the steps necessary to progress from secondary structures, to doubler, repair, and reinforcement applications in primary structures, and, finally, to full-scale production of primary structures such as new or replacement fuselage and wing section applications. Although not ideally suited for all portions of the aircraft,

there are a large of number applications that could benefit significantly from this nextgeneration material.

Current usage in industry for fiber metal laminates includes applications such as ARALL in the C-17 cargo door skins, GLARE 5 in the Boeing 777 cargo floor, HML in Fokker F50 lower wing access panels, HML in T38 crown fuselage panels, ARALL in the C-130 flap skins, HML in De Havilland DHC-8 flap skins, and, significantly, GLARE in the Airbus A380 horizontal and vertical tail plane leading edges in addition to GLARE in the upper fuselage skin of the A380. Leading edges have been found to be appropriate applications of GLARE (glass-epoxy fiber metal laminates) due to the favorable strain rate effect during impacts. Southwest Airlines, in cooperation with Boeing, is currently flight-testing GLARE flap skins on a 737.

A sampling of the current suppliers in the US industrial sector for producing Hybrid Metal Laminates is given in Table B. Some infrastructure has been developed for short production run retrofits and components such as the examples given, above. The preliminary list, below, is based on the current licensees of the GLARE brand products and their limited production to date.

MATERIAL/PROCESS FM 94 Adhesive FM 906 Adhesive S-2 Glass Fibers FM 94/S-2 Glass Prepreg FM 906/S-2 Glass Prepreg 2024-T3 AL Sheet 7475-T761 AL Sheet Phosphoric Anodize

SUPPLIER Cytec Not commercially available Cytec Cytec Not commercially available Alcoa Alcoa Metal Improvement (Pa) Aviation Equip. Corp (Ca) Extensive List of Suppliers Extensive List of Suppliers AAR Composites (FL) GKN Westland (AL) GKN Westland (AL) Vought (TX) CTL Aerospace (OH) GD-ATP (VA) Alliant Tech Sys (UT) Hexcel Struct Prod (PA) NDE, Inc (TX) US Inspection Ser (OH) West-Pro (OR)

Per Spec MIL-A-25463

AMS 3906/2

AMS 4037 AMS-QQ-A-250/4A AMS 4085B ASTM D 3933

Chemical Conversion Coating Primer Application BR 127 or BR 6747-1 Secondary bonding Repair/Rework/Retrofit

MIL-DTL-5541 MIL-DTL-81706 AMS 3107/2 MIL-F-18264 MIL-A-83377B MIL-P-9400C MIL-HDBK-337

NDI Inspection

AMS-STD-2154 AMS 3920

Table B. Preliminary list of suppliers in the industrial segment of HMLs

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IV.

Manufacturing Processes of GLARE

GLARE laminates are manufactured by bonding together unclad metal sheets with fiber composite prepreg using either a press or preferably an autoclave. Prior to bonding layup, the metal layer surfaces are pretreated to improve the adhesion to the prepreg. After the lay-up procedure, the laminate is cured in an autoclave. The adhesive system in

which the fibers are embedded contributes significantly to the performance of the laminates. It also determines the bond strength between the fiber layers and metal layers. The adhesive system that is used in GLARE is epoxy FM 94. Several GLARE variants with different laminate lay-up and fiber orientations have been developed. For example, a typical 2/1 lay-up consists of two layers of metal bonded by one layer of prepreg. Thicker laminates are achieved by adding more layers of each constituent to form a 3/2 or 4/3 lay-up. The laminate can be produced as semi-finished sheet material. Post cure operations can be performed. These operations include milling, drilling, riveting, bolting, and bending. Bending perpendicular to the glass fiber direction requires very generous bend radii. Bending parallel to the fiber direction results in bend radii and spring back angles comparable to the aluminum sheets used in the product. As such, hybrid metal laminates can be press-formed into shapes as long as spring back is taken into account. But these post-cure formed components will be pre-stressed and correspondingly weakened. More desirable is for hybrid metal laminates to be cured in an autoclave into a complete structure, i.e. a large curved panel with co-cured doublers and stiffening elements. The development of splicing concept also allows the fabrication of a larger panel size compared to conventional aluminum structures. In the spliced laminate, thin aluminum sheets are laminated with a very narrow seam in between. The seams in the

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various aluminum sheets are at different locations such that they are bridged by both the fiber layers and the un-spliced aluminum layers. Several concepts are presented in Appendix A and one detailed manufacturing process is presented in Figure 9. The fiber layers between the metal sheets bridge across the gaps, providing load transfer.

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Figure 2. Current manufacturing process for glass-epoxy fiber-metal laminates

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V.

Current Status of Manufacturing Capacity in the US

The current industrial sector can provide a limited number of units of glass-aluminum hybrid metal laminates every month based on short production runs by Aviation Equipment Corp. Figure 2 illustrates the notable steps in the process. Each process step is discussed and bottlenecks are identified and addressed.

Step 1: Consolidation of the S-2 glass fibers and the FM 94 adhesive into 0.127 mm nominally thick sheets is currently automated. The FM 94 adhesive system cures at 120 C. The S-2 glass fibers are approximately 10 m in diameter. US production of glass-epoxy prepreg is of 0.127 mm (.005 inch) thick sheet already relatively wellestablished. Figure 3 roughly illustrates the prepreg process from the constituent FM 94 epoxy and S-2 glass fibers.

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Figure 3. Prepreg manufacturing process. After fabrication and rolling, glass-epoxy prepreg must be stored at or below -18 C for the FM 94 adhesive system. Reference [7].

Figure 4. Current process for preprocessing aluminum sheet for bonding HMLs

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Step 2: Aviation equipment can process components and stock materials in etching and anodizing tanks that measure 14 long, 3 wide, and 7 deep. Only a limited number of 60in by 120in aluminum sheets can be processed in one day. This could be considered one the limiting constraints (bottleneck), currently, on the production rate.

Step 3: Single-sided layup tools for producing the hybrid-metal laminate shapes use similar techniques as conventional one-sided vacuum forming molds for other composite layups. The technology is well-understood.

Step 4: Manufacturing of laminate panels of AL2024-T3 sheet alternating with S-2 glass/FM 94 epoxy prepreg sheet is a highly manual process. The operator is required to meticulously lay the prepreg onto the aluminum layers one layer at a time. Usually this is done while the operator is laying on their stomach suspended over the tooling. This is another limiting constraint in the process.

Step 5: For curing, the sub-assembly is then bagged and attached to a vacuum system in the autoclave. Using the FM 94 adhesive system, the sub-assembly is heated to 250 F (120 C) at a rate of 3-5 F (1.7-2.8 C) per minute. 40 psi of vacuum pressure is then applied to the vacuum bagged setup 2. Then it is held for 60 minutes at 250 F (120 C)2. The total processing time for this step is approximately 210 minutes.

Step 6: For large, flat panels, ultrasonic C-scan inspection is an accurate and appropriate way for detecting cracks and delaminations1. However, it becomes more difficult to use

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this method for detecting defects in contoured panels. Smaller hand-held eddy current testers, Fokker Bondtesters, and ultrasonic probes must be used
ibid

. The detectable flaw

size is directly proportional to the probe size leading to very time consuming inspections for large contoured panels.

Step 7: Panels of hybrid metal laminates are first cured into a contoured mold. After curing and inspection operations are complete, the panel is then machined to the necessary outer profile in addition to the fastener and cut-out holes.

Step 10: Many of the conventional methods for inspecting composite and aluminum structures directly apply to inspecting hybrid metal laminates. Practical eddy current methods for detecting sub-surface cracks using sliding probes such as the Nortec SPO2181 have shown a maximum reliable crack detection depth of 9-10 mm (12-13 AL layers) 1. At fastener row joints (lap joints and butt joints), where the maximum stress occurs in the faying aluminum layers due to secondary bending, cracks initiate at the mating surfaces. The low-frequency eddy-current technique can detect cracks 2 mm at a depth of 3 to 4 mm. At a depth of 5 to 6 mm, cracks of length 6 mm can be reliably detected. Greater than a depth of 6 mm, cracks can no longer be reliably detected 1. For testing delaminations, the Fokker Bondtester is preferred for detecting defects on the order of 0.25 inch diameter at a depth up to 6 mm (~ 7 layers) and 1.25 inch diameter defects at a depth of at least 25 mm (~ 32 layers). Ultrasonic testing allowed for comparable results to the Fokker Bondtester method 1.

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VI.

Possible Future Process of Manufacturing Hybrid Metal Laminates in the US

Figure 5. Potential future manufacturing process for glass-epoxy fiber-metal laminates

Figure 6. CNC Tape Laminate Machine. Reference [3].

Figure 7. Proposed aluminum sheet preprocessing continuous rolling system. 18

Step 1: Based on current production rates, only limited opportunities for improving capabilities of the US prepreg manufacturing sector exist. However, the FM 94 adhesive could potentially have some limitations on service temperature. Hagenbeek reported a glass transition temperature of as low as 67 C 8. With a glass transition, a significant departure in material mechanical properties is observed which is strongly advised against in any aerospace application. This falls well within the common service

temperature of a commercial airliner of -55 C to 80 C. However, it must be mentioned that other sources report the glass transition and service temperatures of 80 C (85% RH)9, 103 C 9, 104 C 11, and 107 C 10, with some numbers showing a dependence on relative humidity. This would suggest that future work would include testing for the Tg of FM 94 using differential thermal analysis (DTA), studying specific heats, CTEs, specific volumes, or viscosities to determine a valid reportable number. Possible

replacements for the FM 94 adhesive system include FM 906 which has a 180 C curing temperature and a greater glass transition temperature. Other future work could include investigation of ways to modify the epoxy systems to improve Tg performance.

Step 2: Figure 7 illustrates a proposed aluminum sheet preprocessing continuous rolling system. Process control will be implemented by changing roller heights within the respective processing tanks to reduce or increase exposure times.

Step 3:

Existing technologies for single-sided vacuum molding will require little However, work-holding for

transitional effort to apply to hybrid metal laminates.

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performing precision operations such as laser welding or highly loaded operations such as friction stir welding may require some limited low-level development.

Step 4: Existing tools for automated composite layups can be directly applied to hybrid metal laminates. Prepreg tape laying machines can currently feed 3, 6, or 12 wide tape onto a panel in X-Y-Z space allowing for complex contouring of aerospace structures. Different platforms are available in either high or low gantry configurations allowing for dispensing rates of up to 2000 IPM a theoretical maximum of approximately 166 sq ft per minute. Figure 6 illustrates one potential automated CNC tape laying system on a high gantry configuration.

Step 5: Machining contouring will take place using conventional 5-axis routers on a gantry-type system. Figure 8 illustrates a potential system produced by Thermwood.

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Figure 8. Five-axis router for machine contouring of hybrid metal laminate formed panels. Thermwood C67-510DT 5-axis CNC router

Figure 9. One proposed manufacturing method for building and curing hybrid metal laminate panels. Doubler bonded to pre- or post-curing using an adhesive system such as FM73 adhesive film. Illustration of steps 4, 5, 6, and 7.

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Step 6:

Splicing is of special concern since AL sheets can currently only be

manufactured with widths up to 1524mm (60in) to the required accuracy and with the necessary nominal thicknesses between 0.3 and 0.5mm 6. This limitation would imply the necessity of applying many costly mechanical longitudinal or circumferential joints in an aircraft fuselage. Intersplicing would help avoid this disadvantage. Obviously, the splices might cause a reduction in performance. According to Roebroeks, however, the actual reduction in performance is quite small when loaded transversely to the splice line
5

. Surprisingly, if the spliced panels are loaded in the direction of the splice lines (e.g.

circumferential hoop stress in a fuselage), the splices actually serve as crack stoppers in both residual and fatigue tests
ibid

. It effect, it acts like a DCF (damage control feature).

Future work could include the development of design rules to properly place these splice lines in their most beneficial configuration. Figure 9 diagrams one potential process for a hybrid metal laminate panel build-up. First, step 6a and 6b would rigidly and precisely position the sheets relative to one another with a fixture for either a friction stir weld operation or a laser weld operation. Post-

machining of the weld bead may be necessary in order to ensure that the glass-epoxy prepreg lays flush on the surface (step 6c). As seen in Step 4 for flat or contoured single aluminum panel hybrid metal laminates, a CNC tape machine can be used for larger panels that require splices. Step 6d would also require that the aluminum sheet be rigidly fixtured for the routing operation. A small piece of sacrificial material would need to be slipped under the edge of the sheet to be machined to prevent any damage to the glass fibers glass fibers have exceptional toughness due to their large strain to failure, but that is significantly degraded when scratched. Step 6e would likely require an epoxy bond (or

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none at all) instead of anything hot enough to cause a fusion weld in the AL sheet since the prepreg will be close by. However, one concept would be to control weld processing temperatures tightly enough to avoid degradation of the underlying prepreg. Figure 10 shows the friction stir weld process. Relative to glass fibers, AL alloys have a relatively low melting point (~520 C). By ensuring that the heat affected zone (HAZ) is limited to only the top fractional distance of the sheet, the aluminum, with a high thermal conductivity, would adequately distribute the weld heat to the entire sheet without affecting the underlying prepreg. Steps 6f through 6h would repeat the process for the remaining layers of the requisite product. All along, the minimum splice spacing

distance would have to be maintained and staggered throughout the panel for minimum effect on the longitudinal or transverse properties. Production of 3.6m (914.4in) wide sheets is planned for the near future and will significantly reduce the number of required splices. This process would be similar for either new construction or for aging aircraft retrofits although retrofit patches likely wouldnt exceed one panel in width. Retrofits can employ portable cure equipment for performing the final step of the vacuum-bagged retrofit process in situ. Typical cure temperatures for FM 73 adhesive film is 120 C. Alternative ideas for splice joints are presented in Appendix A.

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Figure 10. Friction Stir welding process for AL sheet. Reference [4].

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Step 12: Ultrasonic Inspection techniques could be improved by developing specialized transducers to minimize the complicated interference patterns present when used on a layered structure such as GLARE or other hybrid metal laminate. Even though the Fokker Bondtester is reasonably reliable at all depths, the ultrasonic method for detecting delaminations is especially promising due to its layer-by-layer accuracy for finding defects.

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VII.

Possible Future Process of Retrofitting Aging Aircraft with Hybrid Metal Laminates in the US

Figure 11. Potential retrofit manufacturing process for glass-epoxy fiber-metal laminates

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Given in Figure 11 is a potential process for retrofitting existing aircraft that exhibit fatigue cracking with patch plates composed of hybrid metal laminates. The smaller scale of the physical components would enable an incremental increase in the infrastructure capabilities of existing US manufacturers without a tremendous investment in capital equipment and the increased liability of a new material without flight history.

Step 1: Manufacture of retrofit components could begin with the existing process for manufacturing hybrid metal laminate composites detailed in Figure 2. Then manufacturing infrastructure could gradually shift capabilities to the more advanced capabilities and processes detailed in Figure 5 Potential future manufacturing process for glass-epoxy fiber-metal laminates.

Step 2: Aluminum surface preparation begins with paint removal, cleaning, and abrading of the surface seal and underlying fasteners per conventional processes used for existing repair operations. Surface treatment then proceeds with a phosphoric acid anodize to which a BR127 primer is applied and cured. BR127 is a chromate epoxy-phenolic primer manufactured by Cytec.

Steps 3-6: The patch panels and retrofit components are then bonded onto the aircraft using a structural film adhesive such as FM 73. The adhesive is supported by a polyester knit fabric scrim that controls bondline thickness and flow during cure. Curing of this bond is carried out at 115-125 C with a bond line pressure of 240-310 kPa using

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portable vacuum bag and curing equipment 12. Doublers and stringers can be co-cured or installed in a separate operation.

Steps 7-8: Many of the conventional methods for inspecting composite and aluminum structures directly apply to inspecting hybrid metal laminates. Practical eddy current methods for detecting sub-surface cracks using sliding probes such as the Nortec SPO2181 have shown a maximum reliable crack detection depth of 9-10 mm (12-13 AL layers) 1.

Step 10: Seal and paint using conventional paints and sealants.

VIII.

Developing Infrastructure for Using Hybrid Metal Laminates in Aging Aircraft

In order to facilitate the accumulation of flight history with this material and improve its acceptance and familiarity within the design community, a first possible step in employing this material is to introduce it extensively for retrofitting aging military aircraft. Implicit is that there will not be time for developing splice technology and that manual lay-ups of the prepreg with aluminum sheets must be employed rather than using automated CNC tape laying machines and 5-axis CNC routers. Much of the existing infrastructure would be utilized to manufacture the components. However, in order to instill confidence in the design community, a concerted effort to fully characterize the properties of hybrid metal laminates along with thoroughly developed design guidelines, FEA analysis techniques, NDI techniques, thoroughly proven fatigue crack growth

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models, and in-situ bonding techniques must be developed. Figure 12 is a timeline of the major activities that must take place in order to gain acceptance into the MIL-HDBK-5 for Design Allowables. Subsequently, the community would then petition the FAA for testing and certification.

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Figure 12. Aggressive future effort roadmap for readying the industry for retrofits using hybrid metal laminates.

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IX.

Developing Infrastructure for Using Hybrid Metal Laminates in the Development of New Aircraft (e.g. the KC-135 tanker primary structure)

Once hybrid metal laminates have gained wide-spread acceptance in the design community, and approval by the FAA for primary structures, the material will then be considered during trade studies when developing new aircraft. A likely candidate would be the KC-135 that will be developed by either Boeing or the Northrop Grumman-Airbus partnership. Once a commitment is made to use this material for a large-scale program, resources can be devoted to developing the infrastructure for producing hybrid metal laminates for large production runs. Figure 13 details the proposed process that would have evolved from present capabilities. Investments will need to be made in developing splice technologies in conjunction with CNC tape laying machines, CNC 5-axis routing of hybrid metal laminates, advanced welding (FSW and laser), and continuous rolling aluminum sheet preprocessing systems. Additionally, investments will need to be made in developing analysis and design guidelines to accompany the new benefits and limitations of this material.

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Figure 13. Future effort roadmap for readying the industry for new design using hybrid metal laminates.

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X.

Conclusion

The research and development activities to date have covered a variety of important aspects pertaining to mechanical properties of GLARE. However, there is still little and insufficient information available about mechanical behavior of GLARE in published literature. A lot of areas are open to future investigation, especially for the cross-ply configuration of GLARE, and some areas still remains to be further verified by more detailed testing. More research and testing of the basic mechanical behavior such as inplane shear strength, bearing strength and tensile/compressive behavior in different environments, estimation of fatigue lives and crack growth rates, notched sensitivity, impact behavior, delamination and damage characterization are necessary to generate adequate data to facilitate greater utilization of GLARE in future aircraft structures. The manufacturing capabilities of hybrid metal laminates have been evaluated. Figure 14 highlights the major discussion points in this paper. However, much is left on the future effort roadmap in order to fully understand what the requirements are for design, analysis, and NDE maturity. The most direct way to facilitate the development of this very promising new material is to start to commit to applications within industry. Funding for research and development will always be limited unless a return on that investment can be directly related to production of flight components.

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Figure 14. Preliminary evaluation of the current capabilities, transition possibilities, and future efforts has been proposed for manufacturing

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APPENDIX A: Alternative Splice Suggestions for Limited Aluminum Sheet Widths

Reference [16] and [17].

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REFERENCES 1) Heida, J. & Platenkamp, D. In-service inspection of Glare fuselage structures. National Aerospace Laboratory NLR. 2001. Pp 7-13 2) Wu, G. & Yang, J. The Mechanical Behavior of GLARE Laminates for Aircraft Structures. JOM. 2005 January. Vol. 57, Num 1. Pp 3) Grimshaw, M., Grant, C., & Luna Diaz, J. Advanced Technology Tape Laying for Affordable Manufacturing of Large Composite Structures. pp 3,8 4) Friction stir welding. (2008, November 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:28, December 10, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friction_stir_welding&oldid= 253541209 5) Roebroeks, G. Fibre-metal laminates, Recent developments and applications. Structural Laminates Company, The Netherlands/USA 6) Glare Design Aspects and Philosophies. 7) Farquharson, S. & Smith, W. Characterization of polymer composites during autoclave manufacturing by Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy. US Army Research Laboratory 8) Hagenbeek, M. Characterization of Fibre Metal Laminates. 2005. pp 12-16 9) Vlot, A., & Gunnick, J. Fibre Metal Laminates, An Introduction. 2001. pp 6162 10) Vaccari, J., Brady, G., & Clauser, H. Materials Handbook. 15th Edition. McGraw-Hill Professional. 2002. pp 21-22. 11) FM 94 Modified Epoxy Film datasheet. Cytec Engineered Materials. 12) FM 73 Modified Epoxy Film datasheet. Cytec Engineered Materials. 13) Fredell, R., Gunnink, J., Bucci, R., & Hinrichsen, J. Carefree Hybrid Wing Structures for Aging USAF Transports. First International Conference on Damage Tolerance of Aircraft Structures. Pp 4-5. 14) Barsoum, M.W. Fundamentals of Ceramics. 2003. pp. 283-287 15) Wu, H. F. & Wu, L. L. MIL-HDBK-5 design allowables for fibre/metal laminates: ARALL 2 and ARALL 3. Journal of Materials Science Letters 13. 1994. pp 582. 16) U.S. PATENT 5951800, Pettit, Richard G. 17) Vermeeren, C., Beumler, T., De Kanter, J, Van Der Jagt, O., & Out B. Glare Design Aspects and Philosophies. Applied Composite Materials. 2003. 10:257-276 18) Higgins, A. Adhesive Bonding in Aircraft Structures. International Journal of Adhesion & adhesives. 2000. 20:367-376.

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