| | Aerospace and defence | | | Heat Treatments | | The ever increasing demand for operational safety, weight saving, fuel efficiency and operational efficiency with increased flying hours between engine overhauls, all provide an opportunity to apply effective heat treatment. For example, jet engine operating temperature is a key factor in improving both fuel efficiency and operating efficiency. This has led to the continuing development of high nickel heat resisting alloys which, with suitable heat treatment, can provide the required component properties.
Both civil and military aircraft require many components to be heat treated, including: landing gear shafts, flap tracks, door fittings, seat anchorages, air conditioning components, thrust reverser parts, turbine blades, nozzle guide vanes, engine stator rings and shafts, bearings, gears and transmission shafts, engine casings, stores suspension units, cargo movement components, ejector seat parts, rivets and bolts.
Many components for weapons systems and ammunition require heat treatment or precision metal joining.
Gun and armoured vehicle components, missiles and other ballistic items all have parts which will not function correctly without heat treatment. Gun barrels, levers, trigger mechanisms, tank tracks, blast concentration devices and missile casings are typical components requiring heat treatment. |  | | Hot Isostatic Pressing | | It is very difficult to cast titanium or titanium alloys without porosity. All sub-surface porosity in such castings may be eliminated by hot isostatic pressing (HIP). This is particularly important for materials or products which are exposed to very high stresses, such as engine casings. Additionally, HIPping is used to enhance the properties of cast turbine airfoils, including single crystal blades. Aluminium and steel investment castings can be lighter if designed with HIP in mind. Advanced lightweight materials can be produced by diffusion bonding or in the form of metal matrix composites.
The development of precision cast, near-net-shape turbine blades, is a typical example of how the combination of alloy composition, foundry technique and processing improvements have enabled complex blades cast as single crystals to be manufactured cost effectively.
The optical clarity of infra-red windows is improved when the porosity is removed by HIPping. An additional benefit with zinc sulphide material is the removal of impurities rendering the windows perfectly transparent. | | | Surface Technology | | Bodycote specialises in the application of coatings for the aerospace and defence industries. These coatings range from standard zinc to very specialised titanium cadmium and duplex coatings designed to provide maximum protection in the most severe environments.
Bodycote also has extensive expertise in the field of thermal spray coatings and can offer a range of thermal spray services from Nadcap-accredited coating centres in France and the UK. As one of the first industries to fully adopt thermally sprayed coatings into the design of precision engineered components, aerospace applications have been a focus of Bodycote’s thermal spray activities. There are over 100 key thermally sprayed applications within aerospace turbine engines. Without these coatings today’s turbine engines would not operate to the required standards.
As specialists at working with complex geometries, Bodycote can provide thermal spray services for a variety of aerospace applications including wear control (fretting, sliding, impact etc), corrosion control, thermal barrier / thermal efficiency, oxidation / sulfidation, clearance control / tipping and restoration / salvage.
Find out more by downloading the PDF:
 Vital thermal processing solutions for the aerospace and defence industries | | |
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