Commercial aviation manufacturers continually strive to improve their vehicles’ fuel economy and passenger comfort. Additionally, aerospace OEMs must adhere to stringent safety guidelines as specified by governments and industry groups. These competing pressures mean that aviation components must be designed to the tightest tolerances possible. At every step of the process, from concept to tooling to production, aerospace manufacturers must satisfy strict quality standards.

Many aerospace manufacturers are able to meet the slew of requirements through the use of metal stamping. This technique allows manufacturers to create high-quality precision components that can meet strict specifications. It can also work with and produce metal parts of all sizes, granting aerospace manufacturers a wide range of abilities when using this technique. This has led to a broad spectrum of aerospace equipment that owes its creation to the innovative use of metal stamping.

Providing Accurate Components Across the Industry

Aerospace industry regulators require manufacturers to adhere to rigorous quality controls and provide ongoing documentation to comply with national and international standards. One of the most important metrics that aerospace projects must satisfy is AS9100, which is part of the ISO 9001 aerospace standards. In order for aircraft to be approved by governmental bodies like NASA, the DoD, and the FAA, it must first accord with AS9100.

AS9100 standards require aerospace manufacturers to document all processes they use to design and fabricate components. This enables inspectors to better locate errors in the production process in case malfunctions occur later down the line. Stringent documentation also helps manufacturers review production plans so they can identify areas in which they can improve their processes, helping them produce sufficient quantities of parts that satisfy demand.

Every aerospace manufacturing project must prioritize component reliability. Because even the smallest types of aircraft are highly complex machines, each component within them must be ready to perform with maximum accuracy at all times. It’s a constant challenge in aerospace manufacturing to find the highest-value components while staying within demand and budgetary constraints.

Common Types of Metals and Applications

Metal stamping allows aerospace manufacturers to efficiently work with high-quality metals using cost-efficient and time-efficient processes. This technique can work with a broad range of high-quality metals essential to aviation projects, such as:

• Steel
• Stainless steel
• Carbon steel
• Aluminum
• Galvanized steel
• Cold-rolled steel
• Titanium

Aerospace vehicles contain metal stamped components of all sizes. From the airframe all the way down to the nuts and bolts, metal provides for durability, strength, and functionality. Manufacturers use a variety of metal stamping techniques to create products ranging from:

• Larger components such as airframes, brackets, and seat components
• Smaller components such as bolts, screws, studs, pins, nuts, and fasteners
• Flat connection systems
• Signal and power systems
• Communication devices such as headsets, handsets, and press-to-talk systems
• Power distribution systems and controllers

Learn More About Our Custom Metal Stamping Solutions

American Industrial is one of the United States’ leading metal stampers. Our 25,000-square-foot facility just outside of Chicago partners with aerospace manufacturers across the country to produce quality precision metal components for a wide variety of aviation applications. We provide complete, turnkey packages using state-of-the-art stamping equipment and techniques. 

We offer a full range of precision metal-forming processes under our stamping and assembly services umbrella, including: 

• Forming and bending
• Progressive stamping
• Blanking
• Secondary stamping
• Piercing
• Shallow draw stamping
• Coining
• Laser cutting

We also provide additional processes, such as:

• Deburring
• Finishing
• Machining
• Welding 

Reach out to our team to learn more about our metal stamping capabilities.