Research progress and development trend of aluminum-lithium alloys

Abstract

Aluminum-lithium alloys have formed a perfect material system with high specific strength, high toughness and high damage tolerance resistance after the development of three generations. It is attractive to replace the traditional aluminum alloys owing to their excellent weight reduction ability. It is considered as the ideal structural materials for the aircraft and warship in the 21st century. This paper briefly reviews the development of Al-Li alloys, and introduces the idea of composition design, manufacturing and advanced application technology of the Al-Li alloys. It is pointed out that the high cost is the main problem restricting the further large-scale application of Al-Li alloys. The research directions, like to improve the product types of Al-Li alloys, develop anti-fatigue, anti-damage and low density Al-Li alloys, study the overall manufacturing technology of Al-Li alloy large parts, develop the Al-Li alloy aging forming technology, laser welding, friction stir welding and other advanced joining technologies, and other applications are also proposed in this paper.

Keywords

• aluminum-lithium alloy
• chemical composition design
• manufacturing
• advanced application technology