Development of Castings for Landing Gear aluminum forgings

For many landing gear structural components, the need for high-strength while maintaining low weight often necessitates the use of aluminum forgings. Forgings, however, require significant capital investment in tooling and the lead-times associated with producing these tools can be prohibitively long. Castings represent a relatively low cost, short lead-time alternative to forging but traditional casting processes have been unable to demonstrate sufficient mechanical properties. Eck Industries has developed an alternative process, known as ablation casting, which is capable of producing castings with significant increases in both static strength and fatigue properties relative to traditional casting processes. Wrought alloys have also been ablation cast with resulting mechanical properties similar to forged products. The cost and lead times associated with ablation tooling are similar to those of sand castings, offering a distinct advantage over forgings. Ablation casting also offers advantages in design flexibility over forgings. The focus of this SBIR is to develop design solutions that utilize ablation casting as an alternative to forging. During Phase I, a design study will be conducted for a representative landing gear component to establish the viability of ablation casting. Phase II efforts will focus on prototyping and testing the design concept from Phase I.