In order to meet the needs of military and civil fields, China began to imitate al-li alloy since 1960s, and successfully made the properties of the alloy meet the foreign standards.In 2000, southwest aluminum corporation introduced a set of vacuum furnace and casting equipment of aluminum-lithium alloy from Moscow light metal research institute in Russia. Through research and imitation, in 2012, southwest aluminum corporation finally successfully trial-produced the third generation of aluminum-lithium alloy and applied it in the domestic large aircraft project.

China has basically mastered the smelting technology of al-li alloy, such as the casting technology of flat ingot and round ingot. However, there is still a gap of more than 30 years between China and the United States and Russia in terms of basic research and industrial production.Second, the production capacity is small, currently only a southwest aluminum enterprise can produce.

C919 large aircraft project is progressing in our country, including the front cabin, before the cargo hold and recirculation fan module, is by the skin, the cabin porthole, cabin floor and bearing components and composed of tubular structure of section, lithium aluminium alloy is adopted for the first time, this is the first time domestic civil aircraft made of domestic lithium aluminium alloy section, created China's aviation history records.

China is already the world's largest aluminium producer, single theory of aluminium alloy melting, rolling, extrusion and finishing equipment, is worthy of the first in our country, but the world first-class aluminum processing equipment did not play a proper role, because the input of research and development, basic research is weak, the world first-class equipment can only produce low aluminum, aluminum processing equipment even need to be imported from abroad.

To establish modern aluminum industry in China since 1956, China's aviation aluminum market has been dependent on imports, while aluminum alloy output ranked first in the world, but at high cutting-edge technology, China lags far behind the United States, Russia and other countries, our country civil aircraft need aluminum forgings has been made by Alcoa and rate or its wholly owned company in China.In the aluminum lithium alloy research and development technology, we have been imitating, large-scale commercial production there are many technical problems to overcome.

With the rapid development of China's large aircraft industry, there is a great demand for aluminum and lithium alloys in the future.China does not lack world-class modern technology and equipment. What is lacking is the emphasis on technology, investment in research and development, and accumulation of basic research.As long as we make good use of our own equipment advantages, learn the advanced technology of the United States and Russia modestly, and actively cooperate with foreign counterparts, we will be able to catch up with the United States and Russia and achieve technological independence.