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Industrialisation of self heated composite tooling based on Tailored Fibre Placement Technology

Final Report Summary - GREEN-TOOLING (Industrialisation of self heated composite tooling based on Tailored Fibre Placement Technology)

Executive Summary:
Composite materials are starting to be used extensively in many industrial applications. This is the case for example of the transport (automotive, rail and aeronautic), marine, wind energy and construction industries. New developments such as textile preforming combined with liquid moulding technologies together with recent automation developments will support this tendency. Although it seems that composite manufacturing technologies are already mature, actually they are not. The main bottle neck of composite materials lies in the productivity. Long cycle time associated to thermosetting resins is hindering a higher penetration in high volume sectors. And long cycle times are associated with the high energy consumption required to keep the whole mould mass at the curing temperature throughout the curing process (usually 2 to 6 hours plus heating and cooling). GREEN-TOOLING project, being based on the innovations developed within the “Development of energy efficient / lightweight composite parts and tooling based on Tailored Fibre Placement technology / self heating technology – EMBROIDERY” R4S project, aims at facilitating the commercial exploitation of such results for the benefit of the involved SMEs. Globally seen, GREEN-TOOLING will use four (4) groups of demonstration activities aiming at different markets but using the same corpus knowledge developed within EMBDROIDEY, in order to bridge the gap between research and market, in the following technological areas: (a) Development of adapted heating elements for the curing of composite repairs (GMI), Development of Self heated membrane for preforming applications, as auxiliary element of carbon fiber parts manufacturing process (IDEC), (c) Design of special tools for series production in automotive and aerospace industry (QPOINT) and (d) development of self heating simple or complex moulds (MANDIOLA). Each “technological bridge” will be built by one of the involved SMEs, having TECNALIA, the main innovation provider, in the role of “architect”, ensuring its strength and efficiency. The “bridges” being independent, not only cover a wider market area, thus ensuring higher financial impact, but guarantee the commercial viability of the overall concept, should one of its components fail for whatever reason (i.e. in case one of the targeted markets does not welcome TFP innovations), thus reducing dramatically associated risk. As the four “research to market bridges” are independent, their quantitative and qualitative description will follow an independent way too, so that a thorough understanding of the expected impact of this project is provided per targeted market.

Project Context and Objectives:
In order to achieve its objectives in an efficient way GREEN-TOOLING research activities were broken down into 9 WPs. WP1 was mainly dedicated to perform a basic training of the TFP technology to the SMEs. Trough EMBROIDERY, the main research tasks were carried out by the RTDs, while in a Demo project, the core demonstration activities should be conducted by SMEs. Thus, an initial training campaign was required. Moreover, an initial study concerning the potential of TFP produced parts per industrial sector was carried out, in order to orientate the decision on the demonstrators to be developed towards “real life” and “commercially viable” applications. Work packages 2 to 6 dealt with the demonstration activities. A work package has been allocated to each of the applications to be demonstrated and each SME participant was responsible for its demonstration activity. Tecnalia, apart from implementing WP6, supported the responsible per WP SMEs in several activities related to the resistive circuits like materials selection and characterization, design and manufacturing of resistive circuits, definition/validation of electrical parameters, embedding strategies and functional and robustness validation. WP2 dealt with the development of self-heated membranes for repair applications, led by GMI. The specific aspects of the repair market were investigated and full scale membrane prototypes were produced and tested in real conditions. The connection to the standard control hardware was also considered. WP3 objective was to demonstrate that self-heated membranes are suitable for industrial production of geometrically quite complex preforms, providing important benefits face to current processes, in terms of cost, time and quality. The final objective of IDEC is to apply the self-heated tooling technology to improve their productive processes, achieving high production cadences within a robust process, in order to face with guarantees programs of high cadence rate where IDEC is already involved. WP4 was related to the activities allocated to demonstrate the self-heating technology in rigid tooling for composite manufacturing processes. QPoint main concern was the durability of the self-heated tools in order to withstand the workshop conditions and the required production cadences and life time. The aim of WP5 was the development of self-heated membranes for infusion processes, activity to be undertaken by Mandiola. A full instrumented membrane, able to be used in an automated cycle was designed, produced and validated. Aspects such as the durability of the membrane and the releasing out of the resin were critical in this application. WP6 activities were related to the development of self-heated components to be used with structural/heating functions, in mass transportation systems, led by Tecnalia. A niche market was identified and it was decided to design and produce a demonstration component representative of a real application, to validate it and evaluate the benefits face to current approaches. WP7 was devoted to the improvement of a software tool for supporting the design of the resistive circuits. A simple tool was initially developed within Embroidery with limited capability. The improved tool (“TFP+”) is much more powerful, in terms of available geometry but also in terms of the output. Dissemination and exploitation of results (WP8) was of particular importance, in order to prepare a common Exploitation and Dissemination plan. In this task, all the participants had an active involvement, in particular the SMEs. Final market study on potential of TFP produced parts per industrial sector was concluded. A project website http://www.green-tooling.eu/ was launched by GMI to facilitate dissemination and to support communication among consortium members. Activities were supported by a management/coordination task (WP9), throughout the entire project duration, focused on controlling adequate progress while acting as interlocutor for EC.

Project Results:
Composite materials are starting to be used extensively in many industrial applications. This is the case for example of the transport (automotive, rail and aeronautic), marine, wind energy and construction industries. New developments such as textile preforming combined with liquid moulding technologies together with recent automation developments will support this tendency. Although it seems that composite manufacturing technologies are already mature, actually they are not. The main bottle neck of composite materials lies in the productivity. Long cycle time associated to thermosetting resins is hindering a higher penetration in high volume sectors. And long cycle times are associated with the high energy consumption required to keep the whole mould mass at the curing temperature throughout the curing process (usually 2 to 6 hours plus heating and cooling). The main objective of GREEN-TOOLING project is the industrial implementation of EMBROIDERY Collaborative Project (FP7, 262355) results. This project was devoted to the industrialisation and the search of new applications for the Tailored Fibre Placement (TFP) technology. One of the work packages of EMBROIDERY dealstwith the development of self heated moulds and membranes for composite manufacturing. Therefore, the GREEN-TOOLING project main activity is the demonstration of the self-heated technology based on TFP resistive layers by means of full scale prototypes. In parallel, the improvement of the software tool developed within EMBROIDERY was conducted, in order to directly link the thermal needs on a specific tooling with the stitching machine. The electric circuits were designed in an automated way which facilitates the implementation of the technology by non-expert users. The state-of-the art has shown that a real need of improving productivity while reducing energy usage in composites manufacturing processes exists. The trend towards out of autoclave materials and, in particular, towards infused components is also clear. GREEN-TOOLING addressed these issues by developing an advanced system for improving the heating step associated to most composite manufacturing processes. The main objective of the project was to develop self heated tooling (moulds and membranes) for the composites manufacturing industry in a robust and automated process. The thermal energy is provided by a resistive layer, manufactured by Tailored Fibre Placement (TFP) technology, which is embedded inside the mould or the membrane during its manufacturing process.
The following applications were demonstrated: Membranes for aeronautic repair, Membranes for preforming, Membranes for infusion , Rigid tooling for RTM process. In order to achieve the objectives mentioned above in an efficient way, the GREEN-TOOLING project research activities have been broken down into nine work packages. The first work package (WP1) was mainly dedicated to perform a basic training of the TFP technology to the SMEs. Trough EMBROIDERY, the main research tasks were carried out by the RTDs. In a Demo project, the core of the demonstration activities is to be conducted by the SMEs. Thus, an initial training campaign was required. Moreover, an initial study concerning the potential of TFP produced parts per industrial sector was carried out, in order to orientate the decision on the demonstrators to be developed towards “real life” and “commercially viable” applications. Work packages 2 to 6 dealt with the demonstration activities and are thus the core of GREEN-TOOLING. A work package has been allocated to each one of the applications to be demonstrated. Each SME participant (WP2 GMI, WP3 IDEC, WP4 QPOINT, WP5 MANDIOLA) was responsible for its demonstration activity. Tecnalia, apart from implementing WP6, has supported the responsible per WP SMEs in several activities related to the resistive circuits like materials selection and characterization, design and manufacturing of resistive circuits, definition/ validation of the electrical parameters, embedding strategies and functional and robustness validation. WP2 dealt with the development of self-heated membranes for repair applications and the activity is led by GMI. The specific aspects of the repair market were investigated and several full scale membrane prototypes were produced and tested in real conditions. The connection to the standard control hardware was also considered. The objective of WP3 (IDEC) was to demonstrate that the self-heated membranes are suitable for the industrial production of geometrically quite complex preforms, providing important benefits face to current processes, in terms of cost, time and quality. The final objective of IDEC is to apply the self-heated tooling technology in order to improve their productive processes, achieving high production cadences within a robust process, in order to face with guarantees programs of high cadence rate where IDEC is already involved. Next, WP4 was related to the activities allocated to demonstrate the self-heating technology in rigid tooling for composite manufacturing processes. Leader of this WP is QPoint, with the support of Tecnalia. QPoint main concern was the durability of the self-heated tools in order to withstand the workshop conditions and the required production cadences and life time. Demonstration activities focused on those aspects. The aim of WP5 was the development of self-heated membranes for infusion processes, activity to be undertaken by Mandiola. A full instrumented membrane able to be used in an automated cycle was designed, produced and validated. Aspects such as the durability of the membrane and the releasing out of the resin were critical in this application. Activities carried out within WP6 were related to the development of self-heated components to be used with structural/heating functions, in mass transportation systems. The activity was led by Tecnalia. A niche market has been identified in this area and it was decided to design and produce a demonstration component representative of a real application, in order to validate it and evaluate the benefits face to current approaches. On the other hand, WP7 was devoted to the improvement of a software tool for supporting the design of the resistive circuits. A simple tool was initially developed within Embroidery with limited capability (rectangular shapes are only supported). The improved tool (“TFP+”) is much more powerful, in terms of available geometry but also in terms of the output. Once the technological tasks were concluded, the Dissemination and exploitation of results task (WP8) were carried out. This WP was of particular importance in a Demo project, in order to prepare a common Exploitation and Dissemination plan. The demonstration activities were aimed at bringing the technology to a level in which it can be readily exploitable. In this task, all the participants had an active involvement, in particular the SMEs. Final market study on potential of TFP produced parts per industrial sector, was concluded. Finally, a project website http://www.green-tooling.eu/ was launched by GMI, in order to facilitate the dissemination, as well as to support the communication between the consortium members, shortly after the project started. All these tasks were supported by a management and coordination task (WP9), lasting throughout the entire project duration and focused on controlling the adequate progress, as well as on solving arisen conflicts and on acting as interlocutor for the European Commission. GMI had the role of project coordinator.

Potential Impact:
GREEN-TOOLING project, being based on the innovations developed within the EMBROIDERY project, aims at facilitating the commercial exploitation of such results for the benefit of the involved SMEs, through the implementation of activities listed in the corresponding Workpackages of this proposal. Globally seen, GREEN-TOOLING will use four (4) technological bridges (namely four (4) groups of demonstration activities) aiming at different markets but using the same corpus. Each “bridge” will be built by one of the involved SMEs, having TECNALIA, the main innovation provider, in the role of “architect”, ensuring its strength and efficiency. The “bridges” being independent, not only cover a wider market area, thus ensuring higher financial impact, but guarantee the viability of the overall concept, should one of its components fail for whatever reason (i.e. in case one of the targeted markets does not welcome TFP innovations), thus reducing dramatically associated risk. As the four “research to market bridges” are independent, their quantitative and qualitative description will follow an independent way too, so that a thorough understanding of the expected impact of this project is provided per targeted market.
a. Composite repair heating applications (GMI)
(1) Expected Impact on turnover: GMI is expected to increase its turnover by a minimum of 10%, through inclusion of the capability to develop in a fast and accurate way adapted thermal blankets in its list of available products and services
(2) Expected Impact on employment: Given the expected increase of its turnover, the recruitment of 2-4 additional engineers / technicians will be considered necessary, leading to an addition of 10-15% to GMI manpower.
(3) Specific target markets: The main target market for GMI would be the aeronautical composite repair industry. Due to the increased number of complex composite parts manufactured for modern aircraft (both for wing and fuselage applications) it is expected that the proposed methodology benefits will have a very wide range of application and, consequently, assist GMI in keeping its leading role in this technological area, while increasing its market share. Moreover, using adapted heating technology manufactured by TFP, EU based manufacturers and repair centres using this technology could enjoy a very important advantage compared to international competition.
(4) Expected patent applications or licence agreements: A license agreement between GMI and Tecnalia or some company indicated by Tecnalia is expected to be put into force, for the manufacturing of adapted blankets using TFP technology.
(5) Intermediate steps required achieve these impacts: The main intermediate steps considered, in order to achieve these impacts, mainly include the adaptation of existing technological innovation to specific aircraft needs through validation campaigns and the preparation of real-life demonstrators to “convince” airlines and MROs of the advantages offered by this new technological capabilities. It is expected that GREEN-TOOLING will assist in both directions.
(6) Requirement for European rather than national approach: Given the complexity and the financial magnitude associated with the aeronautical industry, it is considered as straightforward that a European rather a national approach should be followed in all related technological areas. This is valid both at the higher industrial level (e.g. EADS/Airbus) and of course at the level of SMEs, for which cooperating with other EU entities and addressing an overall EU aeronautical market is the only way to succeed adequate financial results.
(7) Correlation with other national or international research activities: GMI, being a leader in the area of development of composite repair equipment for aeronautical applications, has been participating in numerous FP7 projects (Level 1 CP, Cleasnky JTI etc) concerning innovations in composite repair technologies and specifically addressing repair heating issues. An example of such projects is listed below:
■ Cleansky JTI (SFWA-01-009 Project No270574): Induction based Curing Tool for Optimized heating of composite Repairs (INDUCTOR)
■ Cleansky JTI (ECO-01-006 Project No271691): Advanced heating system and control mode for homogeneous high temperature curing of large composite repairs (ADVANCED)
■ Cleansky JTI (ECO-01-022 Project No296501): Flexible Conductive Composite Repair Heaters (CONDUCTOR)
Consequently, as all of these projects address repair heating issues but none of them using TFP technology, it is considered that GREEN-TOOLING will be fully complementary to them, assisting GMI in providing its customers with a wider range of available heating products.
(8) Assumptions and external factors for the achievement of impacts: Today, 442.000 persons are employed in Europe by the aeronautical industry, with a turnover of about €212.000 per employee. It is true that the overall performance of the aeronautical industry is highly dependent on global political and financial factors, which could equally accelerate or decelerate the aeronautical industry growth and correspondingly affect the impact of the technology described within this project. However, given the magnitude of the aeronautical industry and as its overall growth potential is positive, it is strongly believed that this trend and the growth of maintenance requirements that it will generate, will guarantee the positive results expected by the inclusion of TFP manufactured heating blankets, as described within this project.
(9) Justification of improvement of the SME competitiveness: The proposed project will assist in the development of high technology SMEs, where job opportunities will be developed for the industrialization and series production of the projects results, contributing to the renown of European technology and inducing future related research developments. The project being a demonstration project, it has as ambition to further mature and demonstrate a technology that can be directly industrialized and promoted to the worldwide market of repair stations. It deals with a subject, the repair of advanced composite materials, which is a challenging issue between Europe and USA. In the field of bonding for repair advanced composite parts, the heating equipment suppliers are presently American and European (namely GMI Aero, the SME leading this project). In providing state of the art techniques to European companies for the years to come, this project will maintain the orientation of airlines and repair stations, including Asian MROs, towards European sources. In particular GMI, being currently leader in its market, will maintain its prominent role in the maintenance equipment and service business and will be equipped with an important tool for further exploitation towards the USA and Asian markets.
(10) Economic justification for the proposed project: The inspection of aircraft is carried out during periods of maintenance activity. During this period the aircraft is decommissioned from service. For an Airbus A320 minor checks take place every 600 flight hours for the newly manufactured aircraft and every 500 flight hours for the older ones. Medium planned maintenance normally takes place every 20 months for the new aircraft and every 15 months for the old ones. Major planned maintenance during which the aircraft is taken apart is carried out every 6 years for the new A320 and every 5 years for the old ones. Major planned maintenance can result in aircraft being taken out of service for well over 30 days8. According to Airbus in the first 5 years of operation an A320 requires 564 man-hours in maintenance, for 10 years of operation 1,344 man-hours and for 12 years of operation 1,981 man-hours. The total average cost of maintenance for an A320 over a period 15 years is €5.2 million, a significant burden for the operating airline. Total maintenance costs for Europe amount to €615 million per year. The successful implementation of the GREEN-TOOLING project will permit to GMI to address this very large market through the provision of a wider range of available heating equipment, matching to the market needs. The cumulative profits for GMI from sales of the TFP heating equipment and developed heating methodology is expected to reach 2M€, in a period of five (5) years after conclusion of this project, out of which approximately 1M€ will come from sales and services within EU. Consequently, the cost of this project for GMI, is expected to be amortized in a 2-3 years period, not to mention the additional benefits which are expected, through introduction into GMI portfolio of equipment to new clients, which would be approached due to the unique characteristics of the GREEN-TOOLING products.
(11) Roadmap on increase of market activities: For GMI, the new developed heating methodology will renew its range of equipment offered and will consolidate its position in the aeronautical market. Apart from airlines, MROs and Repair Stations, GMI plans to promote this methodology towards aircraft manufacturing factories, as well, in order to address repairs required during manufacturing. This constitutes also an important market where, in the race of productivity, equipment for efficient heating, simultaneously guaranteeing production quality standards, is actively looked for. Finally, potential other markets, like the wind turbine industry will be examined right from the beginning, as it is known that a need for such a methodology already exists. Because GMI is selling other type of equipment to the same customers, this will help reducing the commercial costs borne by the new methodology alone. Regarding investments for the commercialization of the innovation, the share of GMI will be relatively low, mainly restricted to training and support tools. The renewal of the solution to be offered to all GMI airline customers, the quest for solutions of aircraft manufacturing factories and of the new wind turbine industries constitute assets for the marketing success.

b. Self heated membrane for preforming applications (IDEC)
(1) Expected Impact on turnover: A robust and quick process of compaction will reduce costs in a 15% and lead time in 20%.
(2) Expected Impact on employment: Given the expected increase of its turnover, the recruitment of 2-3 additional engineers/technicians will be considered necessary, leading to an addition of 5-10% to IDEC manpower.
(3) Specific target markets: Vast majority of aeronautical projects of the market main constructors (Airbus, Boeing) are focused in the production of airplanes with very high cadences. For this reason, is critical to develop high cadences processes but also robust. As consequence, the preforming of bindered carbon in different situations of the lay-up process by means of self-heated membranes is a direct application of this technology.
(4) Expected patent applications or licence agreements: A license agreement between IDEC and Tecnalia or QPoint, for the manufacturing of the TFP resistive circuits will be prepared at the end of the project.
(5) Intermediate steps required achieve these impacts: The intermediate steps in order to achieve these impacts are: detailed analysis of thermal properties, energetical efficiency, trials and set-up with different materials, and analysis of the best components and parts of the process where the implement of this technology would be have more beneficial effect. The first part of the project would be to evaluate which parameters can have an influence in the final result of the part, and as consequence must be controlled. Some examples could be: Heating rate influence, Temperature variation, Final Level of compaction. Once the key parameters have been identified, the tolerance of the most critical ones will be defined, based on trials and experiments and the results obtained. Project requirements are: zero defects, reduction of lead time, reduction of labour costs.
(6) Requirement for European rather than national approach: Being the main customer of IDEC (EADS/Airbus) an European Consortium, and having some other potential European costumers (Dassault, Fokker) it seems logical to cooperate with EU entities to get more chances to success in getting contracts.
(7) Correlation with other national or international research activities: No correlation with other national or international research activities is found due to the high innovative characteristics of this project.
(8) Assumptions and external factors for the achievement of impacts:
As shown in the next graph, the expected growth of high cadence aircrafts leads the future up to products based on single aisle configuration, for in the next fifteen years: Almost 6250 new twin-aisle passenger aircraft will be required. Average of 1248 aircraft per year must be built. Such forecast focuses the priority of technologies development in advanced processes able to sustain the challenging demands that OEMs are putting on their Supply Chain: process capabilities, high quality ratios (very low CPKs), ramp-up ability and competitive prices.
(9) Justification of improvement of the SME the competitiveness: In RTM technology, and especially in thick and or complex components, compaction is quite important to achieve zero defect parts. This also leads to a direct reduction of lead time and labour costs. This innovative solution can also introduce tools for applying process monitoring, which can provide evident improvements in the quality of the parts by a better control of key process parameters.
(10) Economic justification for the proposed project:
The study of a typical RTM process breakdown phases shows the critical impact of the preforming phase into the total lead time and cost. High cadence aircraft programs as A320 NEO are highly demanding on times reductions to guarantee on time deliveries as well as competitive costs. The successful implementation of the GREEN TOOLING project will allow to IDEC entering into a new era of RTM technology by obtaining a reduction around 15% of the total cost through a drastic improvement in the preforming processes.
(11) Roadmap on increase of market activities: The possibilities of this technology development can go beyond above mentioned, as it can be studied the application in the forthcoming process phases, as injection, cutting and post-curing, that is, covering the full scope of the manufacturing process. Self-heated membranes can be applied to an uncountable RTM components, and the scope can perfectly achieve nearly % of the components manufactured at IDEC, due to the characteristics of the process and geometry of the components (shape, size, complexity). These membranes can open the market for another markets where very high cadences are needed (automotive), or either aeronautical with very high cadence airplanes.

c. Self heated composite tooling for innovative processes (QPOINT)
(1) Expected Impact on turnover: Qpoint products will benefit from the results of the EMBROIDERY-project as a first step. The demonstrations program will help to adapt the gained results into benefits for the product portfolio and for the customer. A better quality and lifetime of Qpoint’s equipment will be reached and will support the acceptance of Qpoint’s new and innovative products. The wider market approach within the EU will unlock new customers and push Qpoint’s turnover min. 40 to 60% over the next three years.
(2) Expected Impact on employment: Qpoint will hire one sales representative to acquire new projects and customers. Additional, Qpoint will increase the work force correlating to the additional turnover. This will result in an additional workforce of about 20% to Qpoint’s actual staff.
(3) Specific target markets: The main advantages of Qpoint’s product can be found in applications with a variotherm heat treatment like in the composite industry, where you have to heat up and cool down very quickly and in the most efficient way. Our products have a low thermal mass and use a minimum of energy to heat up and cool down. Therefore, we will focus on this market with the most benefit. Composites are used mainly in the field of aircraft and automotive application as well as in the shipbuilding sector (yachting). The aircraft composite market has a strong demand for innovative production technology in order to reach the tough ramp up for aircrafts like the Airbus A350 and Boeing’s Dreamliner, which both have about 50% composites in structural parts. Both are completely new designed aircrafts with an increased percentage of structural composite parts (15 to 50%). Besides the aircraft industry the automotive industry has to fulfill high requirements to reach the statutory CO2 reduction specifications. One puzzle piece is to use lightweight constructions and materials. The use of composite materials will reduce the mass of a car, will reduce the fuel consumption and will reduce the CO2 output. Qpoint wants to use this technology pull to sell its production equipment for composites. Beneath the direct composite industry, Qpoint will use the sales effort and the concerning synergies to sell also textile heating structure e.g. for de-icing application.
(4) Expected patent applications or licence agreements: A license agreement can be possible between the consortium partners or other indicated companies. It is also possible that the further development will result in patent applications.
(5) Intermediate steps required achieve these impacts: Qpoint has to analyze and adapt the R&D results of EMBROIDERY. The combination with the customer needs will enable Qpoint to sell in an easier way their products and to fulfill the requirements of the companies. Qpoint’s production technology must be conforming to national laws and standardizations. A legal requirement analysis is planned to get a first picture and to define the next tasks. Qpoint will do research for further applications of the technology. It will be also necessary to prepare the market entry for new markets and to support the sales representative.
(6) Requirement for European rather than national approach: To spread up the range of products and to reach new markets outside Germany, Qpoint hat to analyze the customer needs in a differentiated way. Each country has other standardizations and legal requirements. It will be essential to achieve the customer’s needs in combination with the local legal differences. Qpoint’s target markets are not closed inside national borders and it is vital to focus on a European Approach.
(7) Correlation with other national or international research activities: Qpoint participates in a national funded project called ‘10k-tooling’. This project focuses on the lifetime of production equipment and Qpoint wants to enlarge the lifetime of its products. This project is a brick in the wall to fulfill customers need in Europe.
Another project ‘SMARTTEX’ (national funded) concentrates on the integration of TFP heating structures in constructions and buildings to use the infrared heating capabilities of the TFP heating structures.
(8) Assumptions and external factors for the achievement of impacts: “During this period, Airbus foresees the need for some 27,300 passenger airliners with seating capacities of 100 seats and above, along with nearly 900 new factory-built freighter aircraft. The Global Market Forecast also anticipates a more than doubling of the world’s overall passenger aircraft inventory, from 15,500 today to more than 32,500 by 2031.“, states Airbus on its global market forecast 2012-2031. The outlook for the aircraft industry is positive and underlines the high potential in this market. Of course, the percentage of composites in other aircrafts than Airbus A350 and Boeing Dreamliner is not very high, but in conjunction with the production ramp up of both airplanes a strong demand for innovative technology is needed. The automotive industry has to reach environmental regulatory and have to effort developments for lightweight materials and construction. The composite market will benefit from this effort. An independent analysis of McKinsey (February 2012) underlines the high potential in this market and expects a CAGR of about 17%. However, the economic development in these markets is highly connected with political, environmental and global economic circumstances and therefore a clear outlook is difficult.
(9) Justification of improvement of the SME the competitiveness: Innovations are one driver for competitiveness. Qpoint acts in a globalized and dynamic market and has to deal with other technology improvements and innovative companies. High tech products need the smart use of R&D and Demonstration programs. Qpoint has already shown that it has good capabilities to use R&D results and bring new products to the market. As a spinoff of a German research institute (Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V.) Qpoint has fitted in the role as a marketer very well to push the young company in 2009. Qpoint knows best to use the results of the EMBROIDERY project and the linked demonstration program. The results will help Qpoint to sell products with a higher quality, to fulfill national standards and customer needs and will bring Qpoint to new markets within Europe and Qpoint will become a global player in mid-term perspective.
(10) Economic justification for the proposed project: The advantages of Qpoint’ technology are reached by cost reduction in the customer’s production process:
• reduction of energy consumption
• no internal transport of the molds to the oven and back
• reduction of cycle time
• low investment cost
• low capital outlay
Additionally Qpoint’s products are enabling the customer to reach a higher production level and allow an increase in quality:
• homogeneous surface temperature of the tool
• defined heating curve
Taking in account that our technology can reduce the process costs for e.g. the pre-forming process of composites structures of about 40%, the customer has a strong interest to use Qpoint’s technology. Since 2009 Qpoint has worked in the German market to place its products within the composite industry. Qpoint has manifested its position in the composite industry for heating of even complex structures. Qpoint has worked a lot to fulfill German standards and laws to sell save products. This will also be necessary for the other European countries. The high technology standard of the products and the capabilities of Tecnalia will help to penetrate the market in a good way. Qpoint plans to achieve a growth in turnover of about 40-60% within the next three years. This will help to fully load its own production capacities in the best way and to increase the workforce of the company. The costs for the project will be fast amortized and will help Qpoint to continue in its dynamic growth.
(11) Roadmap on increase of market activities: Qpoint will hire a technical sales representative to go in direct contact with European composite manufactures in the automotive and aircraft sector. A market analysis will help to search for potential applications and customers. Qpoint will collect the legal requirements for production technology in each region and optimize its products on the customer’s needs. The fulfillment of Airbus production standards and levels like the TRL system (technology readiness level) will help to place products easier within the Airbus consortium and the connected companies and will set up the products as a standard for self heated production equipment. Synergies for other markets like thermoplastic composites or special application with a complex heat treatment are possible. Qpoint will have a wide and open look for potential applications.

d. Self heated membrane for infusion applications (MANDIOLA)
(1) Expected Impact on turnover: Provided the benefits in cycle time, Mandiola expects increasing its turnover by about a 15%, once the new technology will be fully implemented in its production line.
(2) Expected Impact on employment: For the moment, Mandiola expects the incorporation of a new worker to its staff. Hiring of additional personnel will be envisaged in the near future, after full implementation of the new technology within Mandiola chain of production.
(3) Specific target markets: Target markets of Mandiola are the wind energy and the ground transportation. These are very important markets for the European GDP and thus, the cost reduction and energy reduction provided by the efficient self-heating technology will have a strong impact on the European industrial sector.
(4) Expected patent applications or licence agreements: A license agreement is foreseen between the consortium partners, provided by the complete value chain is present in the consortium.
(5) Intermediate steps required achieve these impacts: A full size industrial demonstrator based on a current Mandiola application will be constructed in order to prove the industrial implementation of the technology.
(6) Requirement for European rather than national approach: A European project will provide access to knowledge not easily found in one single country. It also helps to the dissemination and exploitation off the research results.
(7) Correlation with other national or international research activities: Mandiola has already participated in Embroidery collaborative project, which is the origin of GRENN-TOOLING, while participating to several European and National R&D projects.
(8) Assumptions and external factors for the achievement of impacts: As mentioned before, regulations for increasing the renewable energy share will tend to increase the installed wind energy at the European level. That means an increase in the manufacturing of wind mill components which may take advantage of the new technology. Moreover, new regulations on CO2 emissions originated in mass transport systems will impose a higher penetration of composite materials in vehicles, bringing about new opportunities to the technology.
(9) Justification of improvement of the SME the competitiveness: Competitiveness is clearly increased due to the reduction in cycle time and the associated cost reduction of manufactured items, having a direct positive effect in their final market price.
(10) Economic justification for the proposed project: It is estimated that Mandiola will increase its productivity at an estimated percentage of 20%. The energy reduction associated to the new more efficient technology will bring about a time for the return of the investment in about 2 years.
(11) Roadmap on increase of market activities: As mentioned above, the incorporation of the new technology into Mandiola’s chain of production is expected to lead to a direct market cost reduction, which will make Mandiola’s products even more antagonistic to the global market. As Mandiola’s marketing department will immediately include this lower pricing into its pricelists, a direct increase of market activities is expected to occur, with an expected time for return of investment of 2-3 years.

Dissemination and exploitation of project results, and management of intellectual property
Dissemination
One of the main topics discussed during the preparation phase of this proposal, was the dissemination and exploitation of the project results, in order to maximize the contribution of this project to European competitiveness. For this reason, breakdown of activities has been programmed, as follows:
a. Dissemination of Results
A policy of wide dissemination of project results will be pursued. The Project Coordinator will champion dissemination of information, particularly for the purpose of ensuring future exploitation. Moreover, general dissemination activities will include:
• The inclusion of project results in the partners web sites.
• The publication of project results in technical papers, trade journals and conferences as well as in commercial events.
• Disclosure of information through project brochure to relevant associations and organizations.
• Interaction with other European projects which are active in the field of disseminating knowledge in the area of composite repairs to aeronautical stakeholders. As an example the project “Composites repair monitoring and validation. Dissemination of innovations and latest achievements to key players of the aeronautical industry – AEROPLAN” (FP7-AAT-2011-RTD-1-[CSA-SA]-285089) is mentioned, which is an EU funded support action specifically focused on composite repairs. Given that both GMI and Tecnalia participate to that project, the “dissemination infrastructure” already assembled there-in could be further exploited for the purposes of this project, thus ensuring appropriate dissemination of TFP results.

Market and exploitation strategy
As each one of the participating SMEs will focus their market and exploitation efforts towards different markets, a modular approach towards this strategy has been foreseen, as follows:
a. GMI
As GMI is recognized to be a world leader for the supply of equipment and engineering solutions for the maintenance of aircraft composite structures, after twenty years of continuous innovation in this field, it is expected that the new system will be easily and adequately promoted to potential customers (MROs, airlines, aircraft manufacturers). The continuous growth of air transportation activities, together with the increasing use of composite materials on aircraft, guarantee the expansion of the market for systems like the one demonstrated within this project. Finally, other potential markets, like the wind turbine industry will be examined right from the beginning, as it is known that a need for such a system already exists at this sector, as well, leading to significant economical and ecological results. Consequently, as analyzed in previous Paragraphs and considering a 40% margin, a Return of Investment (ROI) in no more than 2-3 years is expected.
b. IDEC:
Main application would be the preforming of carbon bindered in different situations of the lay-up process for several elements produced already in IDEC, or that will do in a short period of time. Vast majority of aeronautical project of the market main constructors (Airbus, Boing) are focused in the production of airplanes with very high cadences. For this reason is very important to develop high cadences processes but also robust. In RTM technology, and especially in thick and or complex components, compaction is quite important to achieve zero defect parts. This also leads to a direct reduction of lead time and labour costs. This innovative solution can also introduce tools for applying process monitoring, which can provide evident improvements in the quality of the parts by a better control of key process parameters. Therefore, a robust and quick process of compaction will reduce costs in a 15% and lead time in 20%. The possibilities of this technology development can go beyond above mentioned, as it can be studied the application in the forthcoming process phases, as injection, cutting and post-curing, that is, covering the full scope of the manufacturing process. Self-heated membranes can be applied to an uncountable RTM components, and the scope can perfectly achieve nearly 50% of the components manufactured at IDEC, due to the characteristics of the process and geometry of the components (shape, size, complexity). These membranes can open the market for another markets where very high cadences are needed (automotive), or either aeronautical with very high cadence airplanes.
c. QPOINT
It is worth to note that a heated forming tool regardless of the possible material components and manufacturing processes is always required for the manufacture of composite structures. Due to the rapidly growing market for fibre composites, a strong demand is found. This demand can only be satisfied with new innovative manufacturing technologies. Therefore Qpoint Composite will be able to offer complex heatable tooling for the manufacturing of composite structures. However, despite the cited advantages of the innovative technology, there are still some problems to its practical implementation. In the Embroidery project a simulation tool was developed and a tool for an intelligent heating pattern design is under development. With these helping software tools it is much easier to produce suitable heated equipment. Beside this, the results of the parameter and material research are promising to increase the performance of Qpoint’s products. Nevertheless, the technical evaluation and optimization has not finished yet. Therefore, it is crucial to go on with these results and proceed in optimization and boosting performance. Functional models will be build up to test the results practically and to show the customer the product in real. The benefit of the demonstration project is that Qpoint Composite GmbH could offer more qualitative and innovative composite tooling for the production of composite parts, providing an important sales growth in the countries of the EU and many more. The new markets will help to increase sales up to 60% over 2 years. This will help to ensure a steady growth of Qpoint Composite. In conjunction with the sales growth it will be necessary to increase the work force. The proposed products have the ability to lead to manufacturing process more efficient and cost effective. This could provide a manufacturing system for the production of composite parts on an industrial scale. To define the profit of this project, a categorization in the two underneath named points is useful: (a) Cost and time Saving Potential: Integrated heating structure, low tool mass and low heat capacity reduces cycle time and saves energy. Simplified process reduces the workload in the production of complex composite components. Moreover, reduction of in house transportation is expected, as no transportation of tools to oven and back is necessary. Finally, a process cost reduction of 25% is estimated and an overall cycle time reduction of 20% is estimated. (b) In terms of quality Improvement, the following improvements will be enabled:
• Homogeneous surface temperature.
• Free geometry of the heating structure.
• Local definable heating output per area allows discontinuous structure thickness and notches.
d. MANDIOLA:
MANDIOLA is a composite manufacturer which main business area is the infusion manufacturing of large sized components. MANDIOLA has identified the vacuum bag handling and set up and the curing cycle as the weakest step in its production cycle. This company aims at developing a reusable membrane able to be mounted on a frame as a mean to automate its process. As in previous cases, the exploitation of the project results is ensured by the direct application of the technology in the production line. The incorporation of the new technology into Mandiola’s chain of production is expected to lead to a direct market cost reduction, which will make Mandiola’s products even more antagonistic to the global market. As Mandiola’s marketing department will immediately include this lower pricing into its pricelists, a direct increase of market activities is expected to occur, with an expected time for return of investment of 2-3 years.

List of Websites:
www.greentooling.eu
Mr Roland Chemama, GMI Aero President, roland.chemama@gmi-aero.com +33 1 42821144