"'Future Transportation Means' Urban Air Mobility Aircraft Materials to Be Domestic"

Korea Institute of Materials Science, Hanwha Aerospace, KAI, Hyundai Mobis Collaborate on Material Development

Drone taxis, attracting attention as future urban air mobility. Stock photo. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] As research on future transportation means such as Urban Air Mobility (UAM) intensifies, efforts to localize key materials such as engines and airframes have begun.

According to the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), on the 8th, a kickoff meeting for the development of a materials database aimed at localizing lightweight aviation materials was held in Seminar Room 1, Research Building 1, Changwon Institute, Gyeongnam. Hanwha Aerospace Co., Ltd., a leading domestic engine developer representing the Korean aviation industry, Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. (KAI), focusing on aircraft airframe materials, and Hyundai Mobis Co., Ltd., a future demand company in the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) sector, each participated.

KIMS, together with these companies, will promote the establishment of a database and self-reliance for core materials necessary for aircraft design and manufacturing, including aluminum, titanium, and nickel materials. From 2021 to 2024, leading domestic testing and evaluation institutions will collaborate to secure approximately 160,000 test data points for domestically supplied aviation materials from material suppliers, and based on this, a materials database will be constructed. This is expected not only to secure the competitiveness of domestic aviation materials but also to enhance the capabilities of domestic testing and evaluation institutions.

Lee Jeong-hwan, President of KIMS, stated, “We have built infrastructure for the development and evaluation of aviation metal materials centered on the Aerospace Materials Research Center,” and added, “Starting with the development of this lightweight aviation materials database, we will strive for material self-reliance to strengthen the competitiveness of the domestic aviation industry, which will be a high value-added future growth engine.”