Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a high-precision, non-contact manufacturing technique driven by laser energy. By precisely controlling the directional transfer of donor materials to receiver substrates, it enables rapid fabrication of complex micro/nano-scale structures. With growing demands for lightweight structures and functional integration in the aerospace field, LIFT demonstrates unique application advantages. This paper systematically presents the working principles and critical process parameters of LIFT. It focuses on exploring its application potential in key components such as conformal antennas, heating grids, and frequency selective surfaces. The study objectively identifies current technical challenges in practical applications, including deposition bonding strength, patterning precision, and largescale curved surface manufacturing, while proposing potential solutions. This research provides theoretical references for the design and manufacturing of next-generation intelligent skin systems for aircraft, contributing to the advancement of aerospace equipment toward intelligent and multifunctional development.

Combining two conventional materials with distinct coefficients of thermal expansion at the microscale enables fabrication of metamaterials with negative, zero, or custom-designed thermal expansion coefficients, thereby mitigating harmful structural deformations and thermal mismatches in high-end industrial equipments. As a major branch of mechanical metamaterials research, these structures are evolving rapidly toward multifunctionality. Their chief advantage lies in high designability (tunability), which permits on-demand property customization. Fundamental realization principles and control mechanisms of tunable thermal-expansion metamaterials are elucidated, followed by a systematic overview of advances in mechanical reinforcement, integration of unconventional properties, dynamic performance regulation, and controllable thermal-expansion superstructures. Current design methodologies, especially the pivotal role of topology optimization in innovative configuration development, are then examined. The selected aerospace applications highlight practical potential. Key research challenges are identified, and future development trends are proposed.

Additive manufacturing technology holds broad prospects in the production of complex metal components for the aerospace industry, owing to its high design flexibility, excellent dimensional accuracy, and streamlined manufacturing process. However, challenges such as limited spatial dimensions, high manufacturing costs, and process uncertainties during prolonged forming restrict the direct additive manufacturing of large-scale components. Modular design combined with segmented manufacturing and welding technology can effectively mitigate these issues, making it a current research focus in this field. This paper systematically elaborates on the unique microstructural characteristics of metal structures produced by additive manufacturing and the associated welding challenges. It summarizes strategies to address these difficulties from the perspectives of alloy composition optimization, welding method innovation, and the application of auxiliary technologies. The principles and process characteristics of commonly used welding methods for additively manufactured structures are introduced in detail, with a focus on the weldability of additively manufactured aluminum alloys, titanium alloys, iron-based alloys, and nickel-based alloys. Furthermore, the progress in engineering applications of welding for aerospace additive manufacturing components is reviewed. Finally, it looks forward to the potential application of artificial intelligence in the field of welding manufacturing.

With the continuous advancement of high-end equipment in the aerospace field, titanium alloy multirib components— characterized by their lightweight design, high load-bearing capacity, and high reliability are being  increasingly used as key load-bearing structures in aircraft. However, such components often exhibit complex rib arrangements and extreme combinations of size, which can easily lead to defects during forming, such as incomplete rib filling, folding, and flow line disorder, caused by undesirable material cross-rib flow. These issues also result in concentrated die stress and excessive forming loads. In this study, finite element simulation and a self-developed visual experimental platform for rib filling were employed to systematically investigate the material flow behavior, die stress distribution, and load characteristics during isothermal forming of two-dimensional three ribs characteristic component, three-dimensional connecting ribs characteristic component and large long strip-shaped multi-rib component. The results demonstrate that the use of optimally designed unequal-thickness billets enables quasi-synchronous filling of the rib cavities, effectively suppresses cross-rib material flow, improves forming accuracy, and significantly optimizes die stress distribution. Compared with equal-thickness billets, the optimized billets reduce the maximum forming load by 17.7% for 3D components and 28.3% for large-scale components, while notably mitigating stress concentration in the die.

High-performance thin-walled components are critical and urgently needed parts in fields such as aerospace, boasting broad application prospects. Spinning technology has emerged as an effective technical pathway for the integrated manufacturing and performance enhancement of such components. However, these components are frequently manufactured from hard-to-deform materials, which makes them prone to defects such as wrinkling, cracking, and poor mold conformity during the spinning process due to significant uneven deformation. These challenges constrain the highperformance manufacturing and application of these components. In recent years, to improve their formability, research has progressively introduced various energy fields including electric, magnetic, ultrasonic, and laser into the spinning process, leading to extensive studies on multi-energy field assisted forming. This paper reviews the research progress in applying multi-energy fields to achieve high-performance manufacturing in the spinning of thin-walled components. Firstly, it compares the mechanisms of different energy fields on hard-to-deform materials and their influence on the spinning process and forming quality. Subsequently, it analyzes the key finite element modeling technologies related to the multi-energy field assisted spinning process. Finally, based on the comparative analysis, the advantages and limitations of each energy field in spinning are summarized, and the remaining challenges along with future development directions for multi-energy field assisted spinning technology of high-performance thin-walled components are discussed.

High-intensity ultrasound can effectively improve the grain structure and element distribution uniformity of industrial large-scale Al alloy ingots. In this paper, ultrasonic-assisted casting of 2219 Al alloy ingots (Ф630 mm×4500 mm) was carried out to compare the microstructure differences between the two ingots. The results indicate that the core of the conventional ingot is predominantly composed of coarse dendrites. After ultrasonic treatment, the α-Al grains in the ingot are refined, with refinement rates of 27.7%, 31.4%, and 24.2% at the edge, R/2, and core positions, respectively. The area fractions of the coarse Al₂Cu eutectic phase are 15.18%, 8.42%, and 5.3%, respectively, which represent relative reductions of 21.1%, 31.6%, and 30.4% compared to the ingot without ultrasonic treatment. The tensile strength, yield strength, and elongation of the ultrasonically treated ingot are significantly improved compared to those of the untreated ingot. Specifically, the tensile strength at the center, R/2, and edge positions is relatively increased by 18.2%, 24.2%, and 11.1%, respectively. This study validates that ultrasonic cavitation and acoustic streaming promoting heterogeneous nucleation are the dominant mechanisms for modifying Al alloy melts, and by establishing a quantitative relationship with the undercooling required for nucleation, it provides a precise basis for process control in industrial applications of this mechanism.

To address the challenges posed by professional terminology, short texts, large data volumes, and mixed Chinese–English content in aircraft maintenance manuals, this paper proposes a knowledge extraction and knowledge graph construction method based on multi-head attention and full-token masking. First, we design the CoBiTex-FTM (Contextual bidirectional text encoder with full-token masking) model for named entity recognition, which enhances contextual modeling through multi-head attention and ensures label consistency via a whole-word constraint algorithm tailored for mixed-language scenarios. Second, we construct the BiHAM-FTM (Bidirectional LSTM & multi-head attention with full-token masking) model to extract “entity–relation–entity” triples. Finally, an aircraft maintenance knowledge graph system is implemented using Neo4j for structured storage and visual representation of maintenance knowledge. To validate the approach, we build a domain-specific dataset and conduct comparative and ablation experiments. Experimental results show that CoBiTex-FTM achieves an F1 score of 95.16%, while BiHAM-FTM reaches 90.74%, demonstrating superior performance in complex, multilingual, and short-text environments.

Resin matrix aramid honeycomb is widely used in aerospace fields due to its lightweight and highstrength characteristics. Ultrasonic vibration cutting is a significant forming method and tool wear is an important research direction. Full-life processing experiments of 3000 m and 2000 m were respectively carried out for straight blade tools and disc tools in ultrasonic cutting in this work. The wear evaluation was conducted through element analysis and microscopic feature extraction of effective parameters including edge radius and unevenness. Microscopic element analysis of the cutting edge area indicated that the content of hard particles of the cutting edge decreased during the processing, while soft matrix phase increased. The microscopic morphology observation of cutting edge showed that the unevenness of the cutting edge of the tool decreased significantly while the edge radius continuously increased. The tool wear can be characterized as “flattening” and “blunting”. Through finite element simulation of micro-element ultrasonic processing of aramid paper honeycomb and cutting experiment, the law was found that the cutting force constant in “initial wear” and then increasing in “continuous wear”. Indicating that two geometric morphology evaluation indicators proposed were verified to play a leading role in the processing. After verification, three extracted indicators had a prediction error of less than 15% in singlefactor processing mileage and a parameter collaborative prediction error of less than 5%.

For the problems such as high uncertainty in assembly accuracy transmission and post-assembly forced alignment by the current assembly coordination methods that are mainly based on geometric quantity control, this study investigates the cumulative transmission mechanism and quantitative evaluation methods of assembly coordination errors that incorporate the practical error state. Firstly, the deformation during the assembly process of aeronautical thinwalled parts was analyzed, and an error transmission path model for flexible assemblies was constructed based on the symbolic matrix of flexible mating surfaces. Secondly, based on the small displacement torsor theory and homogeneous transformation theory, an initial deviation transmission calculation matrix was constructed. By obtaining the multi-physical field coupling deviation in real-time, the deviation transmission factors were dynamically updated during the assembly process and the transmission calculation matrix w as corrected to accurately calculate the assembly error. Furthermore, with the help of the stability entropy function, a comprehensive evaluation system was established with the assembly error value as the leading indicator, and the local entropy value as the additional indicator, and the accurate evaluation of the cumulative error state on the thin-wall surface could be achieved. Finally, a wing-box structure was taken as an example for verification, and the improvement of the assembly quality was achieved significantly.

This study investigated the effect of the cold metal transfer-cycle step (CMT-CS) arc additive process on the quality of thin-walled parts produced with ER4043 aluminum alloy wire. The effects of welding current, welding speed, interval time and number of cycles between intervals on the macroscopic dimensions, surface quality, porosity and microstructure of thin-walled parts were investigated by using one-factor experimental method. The results show that the CMT-CS process can further precisely control the deposition process and reduce the heat input compared with the conventional CMT process. Different heat inputs and material amounts under different process parameters produce melt pools of different sizes, which in turn affect the macroscopic dimensions and surface quality of the arc additive thin-walled parts. The CMT-CS process has superior porosity suppression than the CMT process. The transverse specimens exhibited a tensile strength of (146.59±3.52) MPa and an elongation of (22.29±3.13)%, which was significantly improved compared with that of the cast parts. The study shows that through the reasonable optimization of CMT-CS process parameters, the morphology and microstructure of thin-walled parts can be effectively controlled, which provides a reference basis for the application of CMT-CS process and the arc additive manufacturing of 4043 aluminum alloy.

The casings, housings, and complex structural components of the aero-engines pose significant demands for hole machining. However, certain holes are frequently overlooked during CNC programming, resulting in machining discrepancies and delays in production schedules. Consequently, the automatic recognition and programming of holes have become critical challenges for enterprises. To address this issue, a 3D model hole feature recognition method based on graph theory and a feature structure tree is proposed, and an axial priority grouping rule is presented. Initially, hole features are categorized based on the CAD 3D model of the part. A graph structure of geometric elements—including parts, bodies, surfaces, and edges—is constructed using a graph traversal algorithm and feature matching method. Subsequently, geometric information regarding surfaces and edges is extracted using boundary representation, followed by a hierarchical search of surfaces, edges, and adjacent surfaces to construct the feature structure tree for holes. Finally, the path structure tree in the extracted geometric element graph is compared with the predefined types of feature structure tree to ascertain the specific type of hole feature, and the axial priority rule is proposed for grouping. Experimental results from the developed software module show that the recognition rate of hole features reaches 100%, establishing a solid foundation for subsequent hole machining and preventing CNC programmers from missing any holes during programming.

To meet the demand for efficient joining of dissimilar materials in aerospace, this study explores interface regulation mechanisms during ultrasonic welding of TC4 titanium alloy to carbon fiber-reinforced polyphenylene sulfide (CF/PPS) composites. A multiscale physicochemical interface engineering strategy is proposed, combining silane coupling agent functionalization with laser microtexturing. We systematically examined how welding parameters, energy director design, and interface modifications affect joint performance. Composite modification through titanium-surface laser engraving and energy-director coatings shifted the interfacial bonding mechanism from mechanical interlocking to a mechanochemical synergy. Under shallow-depth constraints, the linear microtextures achieved optimal shear strength (32.03 MPa), representing a 70.2% increase over deep-depth conditions (18.82 MPa). Without depth restrictions, circular arrays showed superior stability, with an average shear strength of 24.26 MPa, 23.7% higher than grid patterns. Fractography revealed cohesive, interfacial, and mixed failure modes, clarifying the mechanisms behind the strength improvement. This work provides both theoretical and practical insights for dissimilar-material joining in aerospace applications.