Wing of the Future: Aluminum Airframe Solutions for the Future of Aviation

As the aviation industry faces increasing pressure to reduce its environmental footprint, aircraft manufacturers are now striving to dramatically lower the total CO₂ emissions associated with their products, across the entire life cycle. This commitment to sustainability is not only about emissions during flight but also includes material sourcing, manufacturing, and end-of-life recycling.

When considering the full life cycle impact, metallic airframe structures stand out for their sustainability potential. These structures offer a unique advantage: they can achieve near-complete circularity. By recycling both pre-consumer scrap generated during manufacturing and materials recovered at the end of an aircraft’s life, manufacturers can significantly cut down on resource consumption and waste.

One initiative leading this transformation is Constellium’s Wing of the Future, a cutting-edge R&D project that explores a range of innovative technologies aimed at reducing airframe weight while ensuring the structure supports the high production rates required for single-aisle aircraft. In 2024, this project was honored with a France 2030 award, recognizing its groundbreaking contribution to sustainable aerospace innovation.

Key technologies investigated include:

• Aluminum-Lithium alloys for enhanced metallic wing covers
• Friction Stir Welding (FSW) technology as an enabler for optimized metal usage and high-performance joints
• Bonding technology for improved wing skin-stringer assembly
• Trade studies evaluating the best cost-performance balances tailored to customer requirements
• Aerospace structures with low carbon footprint, focusing on aircraft design that integrates circularity from the beginning

Want to read the full story? Please download our paper, published in the Light Metal Age Magazine, to explore the details of Constellium’s innovations and research.