Superplastic aluminium farming has been around for 20 years and has, so far, been used mainly in the aerospace industry. Superform Aluminium, one of the leading exponents of the technique, outlines the superplastic process and shows how super-plastic formed components are being used in some different, unique applications. Among the alternatives to more traditional techniques and materials likely to be embraced by the sheet metal industry beyond the millennium, superplastic forming is one of the most obvious and least exploited. Although the technology itself has now been employed commercially for two decades, some of the metals formed by the process — such as titanium — remain too expensive for many applications. Superplastically formed (SPF) aluminium, on the other hand, has enjoyed a growing diversity in the range of markets for which it is employed, especially in the 1990s.
展开▼
