Project description
Like moving from staples to glue: aircraft composites get even lighter and less expensive
Advanced composites have taken aircraft to new heights more sustainably for more than 30 years. However, certification for airworthiness is rightfully quite strict. Most of these composite parts are still assembled with thousands of mechanical fasteners because getting adhesively bonded joints through the certification process is so much more difficult, time-consuming and expensive. Leveraging the full potential of lightweight composites like high-performance thermoplastics relies on enhanced protection against disbonding. The EU-funded TORNADO project will develop innovative disbond arrest features for integration into high-performance thermoplastic structures, ensuring they pass the 'certification' test.
Objective
The aerospace industry currently has a need for lightweight, complex composite structures to make their way into operational use. Changes in the regulatory landscape and demands for reduced emissions, coupled with the need to optimize Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK), have driven research efforts into cleaner, lighter, and more efficient aircraft designs. A key approach to reducing emissions is minimizing weight: by reducing weight, fuel usage drops, leading to a reduction in overall emissions. This requires that traditional materials such as steel, aluminum, and even titanium be replaced with lighter, high-performance materials. High Performance Thermoplastics (HPTP) are an excellent solution to the issues of recyclability, light weight, high performance, and repairability. HPTP composites offer compelling advantages over metal components: improved working life, lower weight, reduced fuel consumption, and longer service intervals.
The Large Passenger Aircraft (LPA) Platform 2–Multifunctional Fuselage Demonstrator (MFFD) will employ new combinations of airframe structures, cabin/cargo, and system elements using advanced materials, notably HPTP composites. The MFFD is focused on achieving significant cost and weight reductions, coupled with high production rates. The use of thermoplastic welding can lead to significant benefits, but in order to obtain certification under EASA and CS 23 rules, disbond arrest features must be integrated into the structure.
The TORNADO project will develop a novel technology, Inductive Low-Shear Friction Stir Riveting, as well several other fallback alternatives, in order to provide a high-performance solution for disbond arrest in the MFFD.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcomposites
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrytransition metals
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaircraft
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuels
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
33600 Pessac
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.