Tailor-made blanks for the aircraft industry

Abstract

Tailor-Made Blanks (TMBs) are hybrid assemblies made of sheet metals with different materials and/or thicknesses that are joined together prior to forming. Alternatively, a monolithic sheet can be machined to create required thickness variations (machined TMBs). The possibility of having several thicknesses and/or materials in one single structure facilitates optimal material distribution and helps us make ground and air vehicles lighter, more cost-effective, fuel-efficient, and environment-friendly. TMBs technology has been used in the automotive industry for almost two decades mostly in the form of tailor-welded blanks, where steel or aluminum sheets are (laser) welded. The applications of the technology were, however, non-existent in the aircraft industry primarily because the fusion welding processes that are used in the automotive industry are not suitable to the precipitation-hardened high strength aluminum alloys that are used in the aircraft industry. Therefore, alternative joining (production) techniques are needed to produce TMBs in the aircraft industry. The problem is the already available know-how from the automotive industry is not applicable anymore. New research is therefore needed to generate the lacking know-how for application of the TMB concept in the aircraft industry. The objective of this dissertation is to contribute towards generating that missing knowledge.