What Does
Alclad Mean?
Alclad is a duplex metal product made by cladding an aluminum alloy core with surface layers of pure aluminum or aluminum alloy, resulting in increased resistance to corrosion.
It is a sandwich of high-strength aluminum alloy between two sheets of commercially pure metal for a combination of strength and corrosion resistance produced by rolling.
The use of Alclad results in greatly increased life for a structural part.
Corrosionpedia Explains Alclad
Alclad is a composite-wrought product comprised of an aluminum alloy core having on one or both surfaces a metallurgically bonded aluminum or aluminum alloy coating that is anodic to the core and thus electrochemically protects the core against corrosion.
It is an Alcoa trademark name for high-strength sheet aluminum clad with a layer (approximately 5.5% thickness per side) of high-purity aluminum, popularly used in airplane manufacture.
Alclad is a heat-treated aluminum, copper, manganese, magnesium alloy that has the corrosion resistance of pure metal at the surface and the strength of a strong alloy underneath. Of particular importance is the strong bond between the alloy and the pure aluminum.
Alcladding is an important way to protect an aircraft against corrosion. Sheets of 2024-T3 Alclad are a good example of this. The first aircraft to be constructed from Alclad was the all-metal Navy airship ZMC-2, constructed in 1927 at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile.
In applications involving aircraft construction, Alclad has proven to have increased resistance to corrosion at the expense of increased weight when compared to sheet aluminum.