Alvant’s Aixal Brake Rod Win’s Material Application of the Year at the BEEA’s 2019’

The aerospace industry is one of many to face the challenge of finding suitable materials that will reduce weight and improve efficiency, whilst maintaining reliability and lowering whole-life ownership costs. A two-year, £28m project, titled ‘Large Landing Gear of the Future’ has seen Aluminium Matrix Composites (AMC) manufacturer, Alvant, team up with high-technology group, Safran Landing Systems, with the aim to reduce landing gear weight by as much as 30%, thereby making a significant contribution to the aerospace industry’s overall drive to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions. AMCs are an advanced class of composite materials suitable for applications where conventional metals are expected to approach or exceed their performance limits. When compared to unreinforced metals, AMCs’ advantages are numerous, including: greater strength, higher stiffness, lower weight and superior wear resistance, as well as lower coefficients of thermal and electrical conductivity. AMCs offer an exciting potential to industries that need a step change in performance to meet ever stringent market and legislative demands. Alvant believes reinforced AMCs, such as AlXal, can offer reductions in weight compared to legacy materials, and are suitable for applications where typical metal alloys are expected to approach or exceed their performance limits. Alvant’s contribution, funded by £513,000 R&D support from Innovate
UK, is enabling the design, manufacture and testing of an AlXal brake rod which will target a 30% weight reduction over an equivalent titanium component, while maintaining a comparable strength to steel. Alvant believes that, as well as offering this weight reduction of 30% compared to legacy material, AlXal ‘s use of AMCs will give it advantages over carbon composite material such as higher transverse strength and stiffness, superior damage tolerance, and a higher thermal operating range.