Abstract: An apparatus for the heat treatment of aluminum and aluminum alloy components in the aircraft manufacturing industry is precisely controlled in accordance with manufacturing regulations that must be satisfied if the components are to meet regulation quality standards for use in manufacturing an aircraft. For this purpose, the apparatus has a compact arrangement of four stations cooperating with a transport system that moves the components to be treated sequentially through the stations including an annealing station, a quenching station, a cleaning station, and a drying station arranged in that order in the transport direction. The transport system and the stations are controlled by a central processing unit for providing the required control signals, including closed loop controls and monitoring of all parameters that are necessary for a fault-free precisely repeatable heat treatment of the aluminum and aluminum alloy components.

Abstract: Appropriately cleaned titanium or titanium alloy and iron-nickel alloy parts are bonded together to obtain a compound part by providing particular metallic layers in between them and diffusion welding the assembly together. The layer sequence is critical whereby vanadium is used always adjacent the titanium part and chromium or iron or nickel is used adjacent the iron-nickel part whereby chromium and iron can be directly bonded to the vanadium layer; in the case of nickel either chromium or tungsten and platinum are interposed.