Design Criteria for Aluminium Structures: Technology, Codification and Applications

The aluminium and its alloys, from a structural engineering point of view, can be considered as a ‘new’ material (Mazzolani, 1998a). In fact, the first building structures made of aluminium alloy appeared in Europe in the early fifties, when concrete, masonry and steel were the main materials used for civil engineering structures. The aeronautical industry was one of the first fields which benefited of the aluminium alloys physical properties, so much used because there are not other metallic materials which can compete with it. Aluminum alloys are widely and successfully used to build airships, from the early Schwartz and Zeppelin until the modern aircrafts. Nowadays the aluminium alloys are also used in other branches of transportation, such as the rail industry (subway coaches, sleeping cars), the automotive industry (part of cars, containers for trucks, moving cranes) and the shipping industry (civil and military hydrofoils, motorboats). The offshore industry is the largest user of aluminium alloys for structural applications: the helicopter decks and the living quarters of the platforms are an example of structures where aluminium has replaced steel, which in general is the most widely used material for the structural applications. Considering that the first commercial applications of aluminium at the beginning of 20th Century were objects such as mirror frames, house numbers and servings trays, without counting the cooking utensils, which were a major early market, we can recognize the entering into structural engineering for aluminium alloys was not a very simple and easy process. After many difficulties, today it can be recognized that aluminium and its alloys can be considered as a new and competitive material in civil and structural engineering applications (Mazzolani, 1995b, 1999).