Project Number: T2991

Project Title: Nano-Particle Weld Wire Advancement for Rapid AL Repair

Period of Performance: MAY23 – NOV24

At present, there are many Navy aircraft parts that have minor damage and cannot be repaired due to the lack of an approved method of repair. These may be large parts with long lead times or lack of a source at all. An approved repair process would allow these parts to be repaired and used to maintain readiness of aircraft that may be parked due to lack of replacement parts. Aluminum Alloy 2024 and 7075 are two allow systems commonly used for aviation structural components across multiple platforms. These alloys are used by NAVAIR for highly stressed structural applications while providing an excellent strength to weight ratio.

Damage to AA2024 and AA7075 parts is often due to wear and corrosion. Repair approaches require bolted mechanical fittings or part replacement, which is slow, costly, may add weight, and a fleet readiness degrader.

Recent research conducted at UCLA has led to a possible approach to enhance weldability of the high strength aluminum alloys through the addition of nanoparticles in the weld filler metal to enable control of the secondary microstructural phase to reduce the propensity of hot cracking susceptibility.

The proposed research program supports weld development with the use of advanced nanoparticle enhanced aluminum weld filler alloys to enable repair of high strength, difficult to weld, aluminum alloys such as AA2024 and AA7075. The development activity will be limited in nature to explore the feasibility of using the nanoparticle rod as an enablement for the MRO operations. Positive results can increase capabilities and reduce cost and schedule for delivery of parts to improve NAVAIR fleet readiness.

FRC-E anticipates this effort will enable significant reductions in labor, rework and material handling, as well as an increase in throughput and overall level of fleet readiness. Implementation of the processes for welding applications developed under this CNM project will be an on-going identification effort that will not be a core deliverable of this project.

Project results will be shared with additional Navy Stakeholders via Technology Transfer events with a goal of improving application visibility across all platforms. As opportunities are identified, there will be many opportunities for follow-on projects to evaluate savings for specific areas