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Old 08-23-10 | 12:28 PM
  #118  
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KonAaron Snake
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Originally Posted by Scooper
Correct.

Aluminum has no fatigue limit, while steel does.

An aluminum structure subjected to repeated stress excursions, no matter how small, will ultimately fail. Because steel has a fatigue limit, however, a steel structure can be subjected to an infinite number of stress excursions below the fatigue limit, and it will not fail from fatigue.

Designers understand this limitation of aluminum as a structural material, and overbuild structures to mitigate the problem.

Pressurized aluminum airplane fuselages are "life-limited" by the number of pressurization/depressurization cycles. After an airframe has experienced the number of cycles designated by the manufacturer as the maximum for that model, it is retired from service and the aluminum is recycled.
Thanks, I thought that was the case. Didn't several planes crash and that's how the issue was discovered?

I thought that two of the biggest advantages steel and titanium offered was not suffering gradual deterioration.
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