Development of High-Strength, Aluminum-Alloy Nanocomposite Material for Advanced Aerospace Fastener Technology

Every aircraft produced today contains hundreds of thousands of fastened joints. These joints and the fasteners that connect them are perhaps the most common source of failure in aircraft structure. Therefore, it is imperative that advancements in fastener materials and designs be given the utmost consideration and attention to achieve increased joint performance and integrity.

This paper presents the results of development efforts relating to an advanced processing technique and its effect upon selected mechanical properties of certain metallic alloy materials that are deemed appropriate or important for potential fastener applications. By employing this nano-composite material processing technique in the production of aerospace fasteners, it is anticipated that the fasteners' performance characteristics will be enhanced and that the manufacturing costs associated with them will be reduced, by elimination of certain unnecessary processing steps, e.g., thermal treatment, and/or reduction in unacceptable fastener installations, that result when using fasteners produced with current, less robust material processing approaches.