Airbus (sas)

Novelis Koblenz Gmbh

Sunil Khosla

Sabine Maria Spangel

Philippe Meyer

Andreas Harald Bach

Christian Gerhard Krechel

A method of producing an integrated monolithic aluminum structure, the method includes the steps of: (a) providing an aluminum alloy plate with a predetermined thickness of at least 38.1 mm, wherein the aluminum alloy plate is a 7xxx-series alloy provided in an F-temper or an O-temper; (b) optionally pre-machining of the aluminum alloy plate to an intermediate machined structure; (c) high-energy hydroforming of the plate or optional intermediate machined structure against a forming surface of a rigid die having a contour in accordance with a desired curvature of the integrated monolithic aluminum structure, the high-energy hydroforming causing the plate or the intermediate machined structure to conform to the contour of the forming surface to at least one of a uniaxial curvature and a biaxial curvature; (d) solution heat-treating and cooling of the high-energy hydroformed structure; (e) machining and (f) ageing of the final integrated monolithic aluminum structure.

Method of producing a high-energy hydroformed structure from a 7xxx-series alloy

A method of producing an integrated monolithic aluminum structure, the method including the steps of: (a) providing an aluminum alloy plate with a predetermined thickness of at least 25.4 mm, wherein the aluminum alloy plate is a 7xxx-series alloy provided in a W-temper; (b) optionally pre-machining of the aluminum alloy plate to an intermediate machined structure; (c) high-energy hydroforming of the plate or optional intermediate machined structure against a forming surface of a rigid die having a contour in accordance with a desired curvature of the integrated monolithic aluminum structure, the high energy hydroforming causing the plate or the intermediate machined structure to conform to the contour of the forming surface to at least one of a uniaxial curvature and a biaxial curvature; (d) solution heat-treating and cooling of the high-energy hydroformed structure; (e) machining and (f) ageing of the final integrated monolithic aluminum structure.

Method of producing a high-energy hydroformed structure from a 7XXX-series alloy

A method of producing an integrated monolithic aluminum structure including providing an 7xxx-series aluminum alloy plate with a predetermined thickness of at least 10 mm, and wherein the plate has been solution heat treated and stretched, heat-treating the plate product in a first of a plurality of artificial ageing steps required to achieve a final temper state, high-energy hydroforming the plate against a forming surface of a rigid die having a contour with a desired curvature of the integrated monolithic aluminum structure, the high energy forming causing the aluminum alloy plate to conform to the forming surface contour to at least one of a uniaxial curvature and a biaxial curvature, heat-treating the integrated monolithic aluminum structure through a remaining ageing step of the ageing steps to achieve a desired final temper, and machining the high-energy formed structure to a near-final or final machined integrated monolithic aluminum structure.

A method of producing an integrated monolithic aluminum structure, the method including the steps of: (a) providing an aluminum alloy plate with a predetermined thickness of at least 3 mm, wherein the aluminum alloy plate is a 2xxx-series alloy provided in an F-temper or an O-temper; (b) optionally pre-machining of the aluminum alloy plate to an intermediate machined structure; (c) high-energy hydroforming of the plate or optional intermediate machined structure against a forming surface of a rigid die having a contour in accordance with a desired curvature of the integrated monolithic aluminum structure, the high-energy hydroforming causing the plate or the intermediate machined structure to conform to the contour of the forming surface to at least one of a uniaxial curvature and a biaxial curvature; (d) solution heat-treating and cooling of the high-energy hydroformed structure; (e) machining and (f) ageing of the final integrated monolithic aluminum structure.

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Koblenz, Germany

Sunil Khosla