Meeting Demands for High Strength

The aerospace and aeronautical sectors stand at a pivotal juncture, presenting unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Facing numerous obstacles that including the need for high-strength materials capable of withstanding extreme conditions, Goodfellow is on hand to support in these growing needs.

Additionally, technological advancements, stringent safety standards, environmental concerns and geopolitical complexities have influenced global supply chains.

However, the improvements to advanced materials, cutting-edge technologies, and global competition, offers solutions to these challenges, making adaption and innovation crucial.

Advanced Materials to Meet Aerospace and Defense Demands | GoodfellowAdvanced Materials to Meet Aerospace and Defense Demands | Goodfellow

75+

Years of facilitating scientific innovation
 

170K

Huge range of advanced materials

111

Countries served globally

ISO9001

Quality assured products

Advanced Materials Driving Efficiencies for Commercial Aerospace | GoodfellowAdvanced Materials Driving Efficiencies for Commercial Aerospace | Goodfellow

Driving Efficiencies for Aerospace

The sector demands more efficient and environmentally friendly aircraft that meet strict safety standards. Meanwhile, the aeronautical industry must grapple with ensuring national security in an ever-evolving threat landscape across the physical and digital realms.

Space exploration, which continues to capture our imagination, requires advanced materials and innovations that can endure the rigours and extremes of space travel. One common barrier across all areas is the escalating cost, which must be overcome to thrive in this demanding industry.

Goodfellow, a trusted global supplier of high-quality advanced materials and expert technical advice and services, is the ideal partner to support the constantly evolving aerospace and aeronautical sectors. 

Delivering Materials for Aeronautical

Material testing is a key part of ensuring the right final product performance. Goodfellow offers testing services that can provide part of consulting advice to customers who are still exploring which is the right material for their application.

Goodfellow offers a range of different wire types, including platinum and niobium, that are available in ultrathin thicknesses. With its in-house expertise in materials, Goodfellow's range includes a specialist niobium-titanium wire that is incredibly strong and temperature resistant with excellent conductivity.

Many of the wires offered are less than 100 microns in diameter – finer than a single strand of human hair – and specialist matrix preparation methods needed to be used to create the wires to the specified dimensions. 

Advanced Materials for Defense Requirements | GoodfellowAdvanced Materials for Defense Requirements | Goodfellow
Advanced Materials Product Range for Aerospace and Defense | GoodfellowAdvanced Materials Product Range for Aerospace and Defense | Goodfellow

Our Product Range

At Goodfellow, we offer a comprehensive range of high-purity materials specifically catering to the needs of the aerospace and aeronautical industries, including:

Carbon Fibre Filaments + CFRP

Inconel® 625 Rods

Grade 5 Titanium Foils

2024 Aluminium Alloy Foils

Titanium Zirconium Molybdenum (TZM) Alloy rods

6061 Aluminium Alloy Foils

Aerospace and Aeronautical Products

Why Goodfellow?

  • No minimum order
  • Over 175,000 advanced materials
  • Supply Chain Management:
    • sourcing custom materials for your needs
  • Dispatched globally within 48 hours
  • Materials customization:
    • Custom parts for prototyping | Full product modification | Micro-machining | Microfabrication | Rolling
  • Free and fast delivery: Worldwide shipping and customs clearance, to your door. All orders are dispatched within 48 hours
  • Commercial arrangements: 
    • Call off orders | Buffer stock | Fixed and contract pricing | Discounts for increased volumes
  • We help you innovate into the future.

*Conditions apply

Meeting Your Requirements with Aluminum Alloys

This industry’s applications are some of the most demanding for Goodfellow's materials.

Materials used for aerospace applications will often have to withstand extreme environmental conditions and stresses outside the normal range that most materials will experience.

Often, there will be tighter tolerance limits for many aero applications for safety reasons. Thus, any materials used must be of the best quality to ensure that no unexpected behaviors occur due to unwanted defects. 

Recent developments in aerospace include the development of lighter aluminum alloys with less drag and resistance to reduce overall weight and improve fuel efficiency to extend flight distances.

Aluminum alloys are one of the dominant types of materials used in the aerospace sector as a result of their very high strength-to-weight ratio, but more and more composite materials have been replacing aluminum alloys in certain areas of commercial jet airlines, such as the fuselage and wing.

Aluminium Alloys For Demanding Aerospace and Defense Applications | GoodfellowAluminium Alloys For Demanding Aerospace and Defense Applications | Goodfellow
Advanced Materials in Space | GoodfellowAdvanced Materials in Space | Goodfellow

Providing Materials in Space

Goodfellow’s materials have not just found application on Earth but also in scientific instruments mounted on the International Space Station.

Goodfellow provided the high-quality polymethyl-methacrylate that had to be specially molded and machined to form the light guides for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. The manufacturing of the guides was particularly demanding as the project needed to combine molding grade PMMA with high UV transmission that would normally be achieved through a cast product. 

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft probe was another application for which Goodfellow was called upon for its expertise in the development of platinum wires. The probe, which explored the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, used Goodfellow’s platinum wires to measure the moon’s thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity.

Leading Advanced Materials Innovation

As a leader in materials innovation, Goodfellow is now offering green graphene to address many of the concerns about the sustainability and environmental impact of the materials produced.

With no compromise on the purity of the final material, Goodfellow has developed a way of breaking down methane into carbon and hydrogen in a plasma and then recombining the carbon into the thin sheets of graphene as required. 

With this method, Goodfellow can make use of a common waste product from industry – methane - which would typically be released into the atmosphere, where it acts as an extremely potent greenhouse gas. The production method is also incredibly scalable and quick, meaning the outstanding strength of graphene without the negative environmental footprint. 

Goodfellow offers a comprehensive range of aluminum alloys, titanium and TZM, covering all aspects of aerospace and aeronautics industry needs, with the ability to also create custom products on request.  

Advanced Materials Supporting Sustainability in Aerospace and Defense | GoodfellowAdvanced Materials Supporting Sustainability in Aerospace and Defense | Goodfellow
Advanced Materials Reducing Environmental Impact in Aerospace and Defense | GoodfellowAdvanced Materials Reducing Environmental Impact in Aerospace and Defense | Goodfellow

Enabling You to Reduce Environmental Impact

We understand your need for finding novel ways to make aircraft more efficient to reduce the environmental impact of the aerospace industry while also realizing other fuel and power technologies. However, achieving this requires the development of new or improved uses for materials.

We see innovation all the time, with many spacecrafts benefiting from the development of lighter materials, in particular those that are heat resistant and radiation hard. The James Webb Space Telescope used very large areas of Kapton® film, which is radiation resistant and vacuum compatible, and it was used to protect the large telescope and mirrors that form the basis of the observational instruments on board.

With CSR on the industry agenda, we support the aerospace and aeronautical industry to find ways to develop a sustainable supply chain.

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Resources and References:

Dursun, T., & Soutis, C. (2014). Recent developments in advanced aircraft aluminium alloys. Materials and Design, 56, 862–871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2013.12.002

Prasad, N. E., & Wanhill, R. J. H. (2020). Aerospace Materials and Material Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-099925-8.00037-5 

NASA (2016) James Webb Telescope, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/the-complex-material-engineering-of-nasas-webb-telescope-sunshield, Published October 2022

CMI (2022) Challenges Facing Aerospace and Defense Industry, https://www.corrugated-metals.com/blog/challenges-facing-the-aerospace-defense-industry, Published October 2022