A Project A1: Design of Al-base structures for enhanced strength
Project Leader: Professor Simon Ringer - University of Sydney
Staff/students
Compared to Mg-based alloys, Al alloys represent a relatively mature technology and they are widely used in weight-critical applications requiring high specific strength and stiffness. In traditional aerospace markets, a priority for Al alloys lies in consolidating their position as a favoured material in the face of strong pressure from glass-fibre and carbon-fibre reinforced composites, and new Mg-based alloys. Until recently, the price differential between CFRP and Al-based alloys (typically as much as 50x) has been sufficient to outweigh performance advantages, but the advantages in specific strength and stiffness, fatigue resistance and fracture toughness of modern CFRPs, combined with advances in lower cost production, have been sufficient to erode the competitive advantage of aluminium.  
Burdsall, Thomas
La Fontaine, Alex
Li, Esther Sha
Marceau, Ross
Mohseni, Hamid
Ringer, Simon
Sha, Gang
Brondolin, Mylene
Dahle, Arne
Meylan, Bastian
Nogita, Kazuhiro
Bourgeois, Laure
daCosta Teixeira, Julien
deGeuser, Frederic
Estrin, Yuri
Gao, Sam
Goh, Sally
Hutchinson, Chris
Huynh, Kate
Kryvasheyeu, Yury
Liu, Shengdan
Loo, Poay
Moutsos, Stavroula
Muddle, Barry
The use of aluminium alloys in the automotive industry has been increasing significantly in both structural and bodywork applications in vehicles at the upper end of the pricing range. There are opportunities of substantially expanded markets for sheet and extruded products offering increases in strength, formability and toughness at reduced cost. Interestingly, in some such applications, Al alloys are under threat from new Mg-based alloys where the increasing pressure to reduce weight is driving lightweight substitution. The important issues here are specific strength and stiffness (for which Mg and Al alloys are similar), creep resistance and formability/castability.
Therefore, the overall aim of this project is to develop new mechanical property performance space in Al alloys to increase their breadth of applications, to introduce new engineering design possibilities and to make Al alloys more competitive in the face of the evolving properties of other materials.