voestalpine and aerospace

The aerospace industry will continue to grow in the next few years. As a leading supplier of forgings and highly resilient materials, voestalpine is well prepared for this market.

In its product areas, voestalpine is one of the world’s largest aerospace suppliers—voestalpine parts can be found in all major OEM’s aerospace programs, especially at Airbus and Boeing. And according to studies, the aerospace market will continue to grow. By 2034, for example, experts are forecasting demand for 38,050 new aircrafts, the average annual growth rate by 2035 is around 3.5%. This upward trend can also be seen in the voestalpine aerospace strategy that targets an increase in revenue from a current EUR 350 to 500 million by 2020, which equates to a growth rate of 9% per year.

Changing market environment

Aerospace is one of the most demanding industries when it comes to quality and reliability. It places high demands on its suppliers, which calls for constant innovation and developments. The current trends that keep voestalpine busy as a supplier include:

• Low weight and high temperature resistance
• Aircraft structure: titanium replaces aluminum
• Aircraft engines: powder alloys, nickel-based alloys, titanium aluminide, and composites
• Additive manufacturing processes for new design capabilities—first applications already in new engine generation.

But voestalpine faces more than growing technological requirements, it also has to deal with a very dynamic market environment. The USA and Europe continue to be hotspots for  airspace industry investments, and China is becoming more interesting as an aerospace market.

voestalpine products in aircraft

voestalpine is a leading supplier of forgings and highly resistant materials for the aerospace industry. Product examples include special forgings, special materials, cross-rolled special steel sheets and plates, sealing sections, laser-welded titanium fastener rails, flight bearings, fusillage structure parts, and rotor blade components for helicopters.

The companies BÖHLER Edelstahl, BÖHLER Schmiedetechnik, BÖHLER Bleche, Böhler PROFIL, voestalpine Roll Forming Corporation, Villares Metals, and the eifeler Group are very successful in the aerospace industry. The know-how of the some 1,000 employees (BY 2015/16) will continue to drive the ambitious airspace plans in the future.