Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HERFUSE (Hybrid-Electric Regional FUSelage & Empennages)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2024-09-30
HERFUSE (Hybrid-Electric Regional FUSelage & Empennages) aims to design innovative fuselage and empennages for future Hybrid-Electric Regional aircraft (HER) to reduce Green House Gases (GHG) emissions.
It addresses challenges in layout, materials, components, manufacturing, and assembly, integrating features for hybrid-electric propulsion and complementary systems to improve weight, durability, aerodynamics, and operations.
The project aligns with the HERA project, focusing on regional aircraft, and aims to achieve performance gains through technologies such as low GHG energy sources, storage, distribution, operational features, and thermal management. HERFUSE's technical solutions will contribute to reducing emissions at the aircraft level, in tandem with HERA's objectives.
With the intent to support as much as possible the final objectives of Clean Aviation Phase 2, the project team is resteering the project with a re-modulation of regional aircraft integration efforts in Clean Aviation for an optimal use of resources.
HERFUSE has received CAJU request to revise fuselage and empennage to support flying demonstrator by 2030 and an aircraft configuration EIS 2035. HERFUSE goal is now to include new technologies, technical design solutions, manufacturing and assembly solutions matching HERA and future Ultra Efficient Regional Aircraft.
It addresses challenges in layout, materials, components, manufacturing, and assembly, integrating features for hybrid-electric propulsion and complementary systems to improve weight, durability, aerodynamics, and operations.
The project aligns with the HERA project, focusing on regional aircraft, and aims to achieve performance gains through technologies such as low GHG energy sources, storage, distribution, operational features, and thermal management. HERFUSE's technical solutions will contribute to reducing emissions at the aircraft level, in tandem with HERA's objectives.
With the intent to support as much as possible the final objectives of Clean Aviation Phase 2, the project team is resteering the project with a re-modulation of regional aircraft integration efforts in Clean Aviation for an optimal use of resources.
HERFUSE has received CAJU request to revise fuselage and empennage to support flying demonstrator by 2030 and an aircraft configuration EIS 2035. HERFUSE goal is now to include new technologies, technical design solutions, manufacturing and assembly solutions matching HERA and future Ultra Efficient Regional Aircraft.
HERFUSE Project started on January 1st, 2024 and the KOM has been held in Naples On January 30th as first step of the WP1 “Project Management”.
The first technical activities started were into WP2 “Requirements” with the definition of Architecture, Configuration, Certification specification, valid for both Use Cases A and B concept configurations, in accordance with the Top Level Aircraft Requirements (TLAR) defined by the linked project HERA.
The derivation of the detailed Structural and Systems Integration requirements followed concerning fuselage and empennages to meet the defined aircraft performance set considering overall aspects including components size, basic structural characteristics and constraints, as well as for integration of complementary systems required by Hybrid Electrical Regional (HER) platforms.
In parallel, the key elements impacted by topic targets and of relevant innovative technologies contribution have been identified in terms of Functional and Performance Targets and parameterized at the light of the definition of the reference for the evaluation of the proposal progress and to set the scene of technology needs, in accordance with the State-of-Art determined by the HERA project (ATR 72-600).
Activities of the WP4 “Enabling Technologies” started with the definition of the Materials and Manufacturing enablers including development coupon / small scale level testing of the innovative technologies for the preliminary characterization of required material and initial depicting of the related manufacturing processes including ability to manufacture test specimens; this activity has been delayed to address a partial change in the list of the technologies proposed in order to better address the updating made by the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2024 – Towards Disruptive Technologies for new Generation Aircraft by 2035.
The selection of the Enabling Technologies Selection, as first activity of the WP3 “Conceptual Design”, has been slown down because directly connected to the WP4; in any case, all the other tasks of such work package have been started at the relevant KOM on July ’24 where the Master Geometries of fuselage and empennages have been shared inside the HERFUSE Consortium in accordance with the HERA requirements, in order to start with the definition of the conceptual design.
In parallel, the transversal activities of the WP9 “Final Assessment” have begun with definition of the approach related to the Life-Cycle Assessment where the process for the management of the LCA and related output definition has been shared and agreed.
Into the WP1, management activities have been conducted: the Consortium Agreement, has been finalized and the relevant deliverable, called “HERFUSE Consortium Agreement”, has been created and released.
Parallelly, in accordance with what envisaged in the Project proposal, the Risk Management Plan & Risk Register has been defined for managing project lifetime risks, creating risks database (Risk Register) with mitigation plan.
In accordance to the point above, the Impact Monitoring (IM) – Reference, KPIs, Targets and TRL has been issued with the aim to identify the related technical performance metrics that will be used to assess and report project performance against Clean Aviation High Level objectives as defined in the SRIA.
• Key performance parameters per technology brick defined and measured throughout the project against the 2020 state-of-the-art available technologies;
• A TRL maturity path enabling the aircraft level objectives will be defined per mentioned technology brick in line with the expected timeline stated in the GA;
• A TRL definition and assessment process detailed to assess the TRL of quoted key parameters effectively, accurately, and homogenously at each state of the project.
Such activity have taken in consideration the created specific metrics from HERA for the Sustainable Industrialization and Digitalization.
All these activities have been traced into the Cooperation Agreement issued at M9 into the WP1, containing also the Cooperation Matrix in accordance to what reported in the “COOPERATION AGREEMENT among the members of the consortia of CAJU co-funded actions”.
The specific data and documents which are expected to be exchanged with the collaborating Projects have been listed in the “Interface Control Document – CA and other external projects”.
At M9 13 of 16 deliverables have been released and 9 of 10 milestones have been reached.
The first technical activities started were into WP2 “Requirements” with the definition of Architecture, Configuration, Certification specification, valid for both Use Cases A and B concept configurations, in accordance with the Top Level Aircraft Requirements (TLAR) defined by the linked project HERA.
The derivation of the detailed Structural and Systems Integration requirements followed concerning fuselage and empennages to meet the defined aircraft performance set considering overall aspects including components size, basic structural characteristics and constraints, as well as for integration of complementary systems required by Hybrid Electrical Regional (HER) platforms.
In parallel, the key elements impacted by topic targets and of relevant innovative technologies contribution have been identified in terms of Functional and Performance Targets and parameterized at the light of the definition of the reference for the evaluation of the proposal progress and to set the scene of technology needs, in accordance with the State-of-Art determined by the HERA project (ATR 72-600).
Activities of the WP4 “Enabling Technologies” started with the definition of the Materials and Manufacturing enablers including development coupon / small scale level testing of the innovative technologies for the preliminary characterization of required material and initial depicting of the related manufacturing processes including ability to manufacture test specimens; this activity has been delayed to address a partial change in the list of the technologies proposed in order to better address the updating made by the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2024 – Towards Disruptive Technologies for new Generation Aircraft by 2035.
The selection of the Enabling Technologies Selection, as first activity of the WP3 “Conceptual Design”, has been slown down because directly connected to the WP4; in any case, all the other tasks of such work package have been started at the relevant KOM on July ’24 where the Master Geometries of fuselage and empennages have been shared inside the HERFUSE Consortium in accordance with the HERA requirements, in order to start with the definition of the conceptual design.
In parallel, the transversal activities of the WP9 “Final Assessment” have begun with definition of the approach related to the Life-Cycle Assessment where the process for the management of the LCA and related output definition has been shared and agreed.
Into the WP1, management activities have been conducted: the Consortium Agreement, has been finalized and the relevant deliverable, called “HERFUSE Consortium Agreement”, has been created and released.
Parallelly, in accordance with what envisaged in the Project proposal, the Risk Management Plan & Risk Register has been defined for managing project lifetime risks, creating risks database (Risk Register) with mitigation plan.
In accordance to the point above, the Impact Monitoring (IM) – Reference, KPIs, Targets and TRL has been issued with the aim to identify the related technical performance metrics that will be used to assess and report project performance against Clean Aviation High Level objectives as defined in the SRIA.
• Key performance parameters per technology brick defined and measured throughout the project against the 2020 state-of-the-art available technologies;
• A TRL maturity path enabling the aircraft level objectives will be defined per mentioned technology brick in line with the expected timeline stated in the GA;
• A TRL definition and assessment process detailed to assess the TRL of quoted key parameters effectively, accurately, and homogenously at each state of the project.
Such activity have taken in consideration the created specific metrics from HERA for the Sustainable Industrialization and Digitalization.
All these activities have been traced into the Cooperation Agreement issued at M9 into the WP1, containing also the Cooperation Matrix in accordance to what reported in the “COOPERATION AGREEMENT among the members of the consortia of CAJU co-funded actions”.
The specific data and documents which are expected to be exchanged with the collaborating Projects have been listed in the “Interface Control Document – CA and other external projects”.
At M9 13 of 16 deliverables have been released and 9 of 10 milestones have been reached.
Although the technologies are already at a certain level of maturity it is a must to continue their development in order to ensure that the different bricks which are of interest for this project reach the desirable quality.