The large size of the A380 aircraft, the corresponding loads and the targeted structural weight led to significantly higher requirements for alloy properties. This meant that improvements had to be made in the two major design axes, static performance and/or damage tolerance. To achieve these goals, the Alcan-Airbus Integrated Project Teams worked to both extend and qualify existing alloys, and to develop new dedicated alloys.

The material distribution on an Airbus aircraft structure predominantly remains on aluminum based alloys. The example on the A380 super sized aircraft shows that 61% of the structure is made of aluminum alloys, 22% in composites, 10% in titanium and steel and 3% in fiber metal laminate. Nevertheless, the use of composite materials is continuously growing and the new A380 contains 22% of composite structures compared to 12% on the A340.

The competition between metals and composites for the aircraft structures is open for the future and the target compared to a standard metal technology (baseline 1990) is 20 to 30% in terms of weight and 20 to 40% in terms of cost. This competition is managed by a step-by-step approach regarding metal or composite design.

The large size of the A380 aircraft, the corresponding loads and the targeted structural weight led to significantly higher requirements for alloy properties. This meant that improvements had to be made in the two major design axes, static performance and/or damage tolerance. To achieve these goals, the Alcan-Airbus Integrated Project Teams worked to both extend and qualify existing alloys, and to develop new dedicated alloys.