Redux Bonding of Aircraft Structures

Extract

That synthetic glues for wood were used extensively for making Mosquito and Hornet aircraft during the 1939-45 War, and are now used for making Vampires in many European countries, is well known to aeronautical engineers, but not so well known is the fact that, since 1944, synthetic glues for metals have been used in the production of many hundreds of military and civil aircraft. A glue for metals, which gives joints stronger than can be obtained by riveting and which is also resistant to the severe conditions to which aircraft are exposed in service, offers the possibilities of savings in structure weight and of aerodynamically cleaner wing and fuselage surfaces. Such a glue may also be expected to be of value in the manufacture of pressurised fuselages, because it will avoid the large number of small leaks occurring at the rivet heads and may also help to solve the difficult problem of making integral fuel tanks in aircraft wings.