Aviation Industry Increase Tungsten Alloy Demand

With the continuous maturity of emerging business models such as China's domestic airline leasing companies and low-cost airlines, and the continued evolution of consumer spending patterns, China will lead the development of the world aviation market. 

As an important application material in the field of aerospace, tungsten alloy will also take advantage of the development of the aviation industry to gain a rapid growth.

As for the military aircraft, Flight global World Air Forces 2017 has showed that the number of Chinese military aircraft is 2,913 which ranks third in the world. In 2016, there were 418 Chengdu J-7 and 143 Shenyang J-8 in service. The second generation of fighters, such as Chengdu J-7 and Shenyang J-8 accounted for 37% of fighters (bombers + fighters). The third generation of combat aircrafts and the fourth generation of aircrafts are expected to be fitted out in large-scale batches in order to realize the upgrading of our main battle aircraft.

In terms of civil aircraft, the general aviation industry is expected to gain an explosive growth in accordance with the guidance issued by the State Council to promote and standardize the development of the general aviation industry. By 2020, more than 500 General Aviation Aerodromes will be set up in China. There will be more than 5,000 general aircrafts. The economic scale of general aviation will be more than 1 trillion yuan. According to the forecast of Airbus and Boeing about the civil aircraft market in the next 20 years in 2017, we can calculate the average. The global civil aviation market will reach 5.6 trillion US dollars in the next 20 years. Among them, the Asia-Pacific market is the market with the highest growth. China will surpass the United States to become the world's largest aviation market. According to Airbus, Boeing, and COMAC's forecast for the Chinese market during the period between 2016 and 2035, the size of China's civil aviation market will reach 966.4 billion US dollars by 2035.

As the global economy gradually rebounds, there will be a huge demand for global aviation aircraft in the next few years. The large aircraft industry chain covers raw materials, parts, sub-systems, machine assembly process and aftermarket process (maintenance, inspection, dismantling, leasing, etc.). These are all closely related to tungsten alloys.

The first generation of high specific gravity tungsten alloy developed in China in the 1960s was successfully applied in the navigation system of the first artificial satellite developed by China owing to its excellent properties. Later, this new material has been used in China’s first intercontinental missile, various kinds of new fighters and helicopters. Tungsten alloys have already become the indispensable material in the manufacture of aircraft components. 

For example, the tungsten alloy can be applied to the aircraft engine. Tungsten alloy is characterized by heat resistance, wear resistance, high toughness and so on. The main material of aircraft engine is superalloy of which composition includes tungsten. 

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