Composite Vs Aluminum – Which Fuselage Is Best?

Once they work out the issues with the A350 (and I’m not entirely convinced the 787s won’t have a similar problem someday) and they can make it easier to convert them to freighters, composites will be the dominant building material. But it will probably take at least another decade before air craft builders fully switch.

Also magnesium was included. To make the suitable alloy we need aluminium with magnesium to resist corrosion and titanium for extra strength but what do I know about alloys? Stainless steel and chromium are great in thoery but rather heavy. Carbon steel is also great but rather heavy. Like aluminium, magnesium is light weight. Lithium is the lightest weight metal but rather reactive. The Airbus A380 used woven fibre glass known as GLARE, I wonder what it stands for.

Polymer is plastic and will deteriorate as it age.Aluminum is metal.

Until industry can figure out how to make composite structures safely and reliably be able to shed static electricity and not be damaged by lightning. Airbus is having a difficult time with its exterior paint coatings reacting with its skin.

Composite usage in commercial aircraft will be the future for now in that it’s a new material for aircraft construction, and engineers always want to try something new. The odd thing is that in the private aircraft industry, composites were readily being excepted as far back as the 1980s. Composite construction really took of when race car builders embraced the technology.

It really did take the big jet industry a long time to start using carbon. The gliding world started using it in the mid 1970s. I own a glider, built in 1978, which is substantially carbon fibre. Light weight, high strength and capable of being moulded into very good aerodynamic shapes was the reason. The glider is a Schempp Hirth Mini Nimbus C . Standing the test of time after 43 years of flying!

What about metal fatigue? Will composites have a longer lifespan than al fuselages?

From the passenger's point of view an advantage of of composites is that they allow a higher level of humidity in the cabin air - less danger of long term airframe corrosion. Less of the "I'm dying of thirst" feeling you get with aluminium aircraft.

I am an engineer who works with aluminium structures for a major Southern Hemisphere airline and I choose metal over composite any day of the week. Metal structures are imminently repairable while composites are not. As aircraft age, they gather all kinds of damage. The worst damage a metal structure will get, aside from actual mechanical damage from accidents, is corrosion and is very well understood. Composite damage, on the other hand is not so easily found or fixed. In addition, the toleration for damage is equally not well understood. From where I stand, composite structures are more gimmick than progress.

Great, let's fly in paper planes now

With high fuel prices composites its the route to go.

A good engineer will understand why composites will kill you, some proof is already evident The airlines have and never will understand the cost of engineering and material science versus profits. Give the engineers multi million dollar golden parachutes and this could change.

Lightning protection is also an issue since the 'resin' is epoxy, which when burned, gives off cyanide. Proper bonding (and routine inspections) are mandatory. Titanium is very hard to form and is heavier than aluminum--and corrodes when exposed to skydrol (hydraulic fluid). That's why bleed ducts on Boeing airplanes are gold-plated.

I am curious to see what happens with complete plastic fuselages when in different kinds of crashes or go on fire. We have all seen the different scenarios with aluminum.

On small general aviation composite aircraft, I have seen my share of numerous cracks on them. Had the same cracks been with aluminum they would have addressed.

Composites have an advantage in fire safety. After a plane crash, it takes longer for flames to burn through to the interior of the aircraft. This gives passengers more time to escape, whilst having less exposure to smoke.

CFRP is not the future nore is metal .. it will have to a blended approach. The reason being is repairs in the field.. CFRP has little to no history.. metal has been manipulated for decades and we are still waiting for transparent aluminium (scotty is lagging behind on that ) . Like all plastics , they lack the ability to flex out side of thier design parameters.. metal will usually give tell tale signs before catastrophe event and or be able to flex in extreme events that CFRP will just fail.. yes F1 uses CFRP to make the chassis or driver tubs , but it is designed to dissipate energy in a crash.. airframes are not F1 cars..

1:08 Thats a Mexicana De Havilland Comet i am proud that Mexico had that power to buy such of airplane type

Interesting is the case that Airbus are building the A350F freighter. This composite design I hope can stand up to the rigors of loading and rough treatment on the tarmac. One puncture by a loader and its game over. Speed tape doesn't work to well on punctured composites.

You don't mention the C-Series/A220 which followed the 787 (but preceded the A350) in pushing the commercial application of composite technology. Also the wings represent another critical application; while you mention that the 777X retains an aluminum fuselage, you omit that it has a new composite wing.

problem is when the planes are decomissioned, how are we going to recycle them? alu can easily be extracted and melted down, but what about CF and other composites?

I don't think the Composite will replace aluminium in at least a decade or two, but it definitely will in longer run.

2:18 CFRP*

Composite is future

Absolutely, the higher demand for more fuel efficient planes will drive down the price/cost for composite built aircraft.

I think Boeing should make a composite 777 and run test between both and see how customers would react to all composite 777

Isn't the a380 made from composite to

Composites are definitely the future of aircraft, which is unfortunate because we haven't found a way to recycle them yet.

Does this mean we can now have gallium and mercury shipped via air? The entire point about not allowing it to be flown is because if it leaks, it can completely destroy the strength of aluminum.

The one thing I’ve never been able to get a handle on so far: what’s the ACTUAL difference? You, the manufacturers and every other website and news article talk about ‘significant weight savings’. Well, how much? What would be the difference between, say, an A350 fuselage made the way it is, versus if it were made of aluminium?

Isn't an aluminum frame better suited to withstanding lightning strikes?

Composite will replace aluminum. To what extent... who knows. But it'll become more and more prevalent as the price of fuel continues to climb.

It appears that the A350 has major problems so much so Qatar is suing Airbus and Airbus cancelled their 50 plane A321 order to Qatar. The 787 does not appear to have the same paint wire mess issues that the A350 has. Composites will slowly replace aluminum.

I'd hate to say but the A350 situation is just an integral part of the way forward.

New aluminum-lithium alloys are superior to composites in most ways for aircraft. The 787/A350 will probably be the only ones.

Omg, these comments are wonky as ever...🤣

0:49 "wood .. was not strong enough for very high speed flight" - the Mosquito was one of the fastest planes in WW2, and it was made of wood.

Composites have advantages, particularly being lighter. However until they can get the production costs down and volumes up we probably won't see them in single aisle fuselages.

A decrease in diameter by 1 unit of measurement will decrease the circumference by 3.14 units reducing the potential for weight saving disproportionately the narrower the fuselage is.

Flatter surfaces don't suffer the same diminishing returns as they get smaller, and, apart from the weight savings, the (particularly in the case of wings) ability to produce complicated more aerodynamically efficient profiles not (as yet) viable using alloys could well make the additional costs worthwhile.

I suspect that we could possibly see an updated A320 series with composite wings as it is probably the next single aisle due to get any significant airframe upgrade, unless in the unlikey event of the MAX becoming a sales or production disaster it forces Boeing into a total redesign.

I learnt in school, in aircraft construction composites will never replace aluminium 100%, there is always a place for the use of aluminium alloy. Aluminium alloy is proven, so that’s another reason to carry on using it.

Qatar loves composites.

Interesting, you failed to mention that the Beech Starship was the first commercial all-composite aircraft built back in the 1980s

Laminary composite would be more cost effective for manufacturer as with only 1 type of aircraft can derived for multiple variant including Freighter version.....in other hands efficient for operators & happy for passengers as it allows wider windows

As a Canadian, I always find it hilarious how Brits and some others pronounce aluminum.