Applications of Beryllium-Aluminum Alloys

With the development of the aviation and aerospace industries, the performance requirements for the materials used for the production of spacecraft are gradually increasing, requiring not only low density and high strength but also high corrosion resistance, fatigue strength and fracture toughness so as to eliminate or maximize reduce sudden rupture and fatigue rupture.

This demanding requirement sets the beryllium-aluminum family of alloys apart from other aluminum-based alloys and other metal matrix composites used in aircraft construction. Beryllium-aluminum alloy combines the characteristics of beryllium and aluminum to achieve the performance of complementary.

Beryllium sheet has a low density, high modulus of elasticity, but beryllium brittle fracture toughness than most materials are small. The beryllium alloy with aluminum shows great potential in overcoming beryllium defects, not only improving fracture toughness, but also having good machinability. Beryllium-aluminum alloy is not only a very useful space structure material, but also has been widely used in the computer manufacturing and automobile processing industries.

The effects of different beryllium-aluminum ratios on the microstructure and mechanical properties of beryllium-aluminum alloy and the tensile fracture morphology were studied. The phenomenological model of discontinuous particle reinforced composites was used to predict the elastic modulus and stress-strain response of beryllium-aluminum alloys with different beryllium-aluminum ratios. The results were compared with the experimental results.

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