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FRPM 2017, 3 – 6 July, Manchester, UK Fire Structural Safety of Aircraft Materials A.P. Mouritz* School of Engineering, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) Abstract Modern passenger aircraft are constructed using a wide variety of light-weight structural materials, although increasingly flammable organic materials such as fibre-reinforced polymer composites and fibre metal laminates are being used in place of aluminium alloys in large safety-critical structures such as the fuselage and wings. This presentation compares the relative fire structural performance of aircraft-grade aluminium alloys against carbon-epoxy laminates and fibre metal laminates (or GLARE). Research reveals that composite materials heat-up faster and reach higher temperatures than aluminium alloys when exposed to fire. However, carbon-fibre composites have vastly superior residual tensile strength than aluminium alloys when exposed to fire due to the capacity of the fibres to retain stiffness and strength at high temperature. The fire structural performance of aluminium alloys and fibre-metal laminates are similar. The processes controlling the softening and failure of these different classes of aerospace materials will be explained in the presentation.