Kinetics and Microstructural Control

· The average skin temperature of the aircraft in steady flight is about
370 K, and the alloy is required to be stable for the design life of 15 years with 50,000 flight hours.

· The diagram shows typical offset yield stress (proof stress) behavior for a number of candidate skin materials as a function of temperature.
· At the time of the Concorde design titanium technology was not advanced and the decision was made to modify aluminum alloys to meet the required performance.
The aluminum alloy shown is starting to decrease in yield stress at the desired temperature.

From: "The Skin of Concorde,"
The Open University Press (1973)