Alloy design for aircraft engines

Metallic materials, with their unique combinations of mechanical and thermophysical properties, are likely to remain as major constituents of aircraft engines and other related advanced energy-generation and propulsion systems, particularly in safety-critical rotating turbine and compressor components such as disks and blades. At present, there is a convergence of factors that promise to dramatically reduce the time and cost of developing new classes of advanced structural materials; these developments will undoubtedly have a positive impact on aircraft engine materials. First is the advent of materials databases, including rich, highly populated experimental databases. The rapid expansion of computational power has also enabled multiphysics simulations that enable prediction of transport, structure, defects and properties at the nano-, micro- and mesoscale19. This has enabled the simulation of a wide spectrum of relevant phenomena, including diffusion, solidification, hot working and superplastic forming operations, as well as the morphological evolution of phases and grain structure. Beyond highly engineered multilayers, new classes of substrate materials with higher melting temperatures are required. The advent of improved computational tools for mechanical, aero and thermal design of turbine components has resulted in greater geometric complexity of many engine components.