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Aluminium-lithium alloys

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Abstract

A review is presented on the development of aluminium-lithium alloys spanning several decades including both ingot metallurgy and rapid solidification. Initial interest in aluminium-lithium alloys derived from the benefits associated with lithium, both in the presence of solid solution and as the coherent Al3Li phase which result in a density reduction of about 3% for each weight per cent addition of lithium and an increase in Young's modulus of about 6%. In principle weight savings in aircraft structural parts could reach 15%. The less than optimum deformation and fracture behaviour of aluminium-lithium alloys has been attributed in part to the strain localization that results from the planar slip of shearable Al3Li precipitates. The physical metallurgy of aluminium-lithium alloys is reviewed together with various approaches that investigators have carried out, to various degrees of success, to improve the deformation behaviour inherent to these alloys. Many of the problems associated with ingot processed Al-Li alloys were alleviated to a certain extent by rapid solidification-powder metallurgy (RS-PM) processes. Although considerable progress was indeed achieved by RS-PM processing technology, the RS-PM approach introduced another problem, namely that of oxide contamination. Recently it has been demonstrated that “spray atomization and collection” processes, properly managed, are able to produce rapidly solidified, wrought, fully dense alloys which overcome the faults of RS-PM alloys. The developments of such processes are also reviewed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Enrique J. Lavernia & Nicholas J. Grant

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  1. Enrique J. Lavernia
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Lavernia, E.J., Grant, N.J. Aluminium-lithium alloys. J Mater Sci 22, 1521–1529 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01132370

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