Selective Reinforcement of Aerospace Structures Using Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing

The combination of ultrasonic additive manufacturing (UAM) and metal matrix composite (MMC) materials enables novel and unique structures for the aerospace industry. This paper discusses tensile testing and modeling of MMC composites made with UAM for the first time. Composites built with 20, 34, and 45% MMC exhibited strengths near 430, 550, and 650 MPa, respectively. Complementary microscopy and CT scans are used to inform the modeling and testing effort. Modeling and testing show close agreement. Lastly, a non-standardized fatigue specimen is fabricated and tested to failure. The specimen began to crack near 500 k cycles and was resistant to failure (> 20 M cycles). On the other hand, a reference unreinforced specimen began to crack near 100 k cycles and failed near 180 k cycles.