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Development of clean technologies for aircraft industry

Objective



BE95-1154 Development of Clean Technologies for Aircraft Industry - DOCT
To meet particularly demanding specifications, the aeronautical industry implements very varied and sophisticated manufacturing processes. Among these processes, cleaning and surface preparations use large quantities of hazardous chemical compounds considered as major pollutants: organic solvents and hexavalent chromium.

The objectives are to develop new non-hazardous solvent-free cleaning processes and chromium-free surface treatments. The ways selected are:
- For the solvent-free cleaning: development of laser, plasma and blasting techniques, supercritical fluid, aqueous cleaner applicable to various kinds of materials (metal and composite) and structures (pipes, boxes, sheets). - For chromium-free surface treatment: development of new bath formulations obtained by mixing simple non hazardous chemical products adapted to pickling, dismutting, anodising and conversion of aluminium alloys.

The demonstration of feasability of such processes should result in: - A reduction in VOC's and chromium emissions by around 80%, - An estimated profit on the manufacturing costs of 40%,
- An increasing of fatigue life from 5 to 10% of anodized aluminium alloys, - A reduction of treatment cycle time around 30% for anodizing.
The research programme consists of three essential steps allowing to progressively select and improve the most adapted processes and then to validate them.
The aim of the first step is to define the parameters of the processes. It will be completely performed in laboratory, using standard specimens and standard surface conditions and contaminants.
the next step will consist in optimizing and adapting the most promising technologies selected previously to technical requirements such as real contaminants, shape of the part, improved yield, reduction in cycle times. The aim of the last step is to demonstrate the industrial feasibility by validating on the technical side, quality assurance, environment and safety levels of the previously developed processes. The selected technologies will be integrated into one single process (e.g. degreasing/pickling/anodizing or degreasing/ pickling/chemical conversion).

Call for proposal

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Coordinator

EUROPEAN AERONAUTICS DEFENSE AND SPACE COMPANY EADS GIE
EU contribution
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Address
Boulevard de Montmorency 37
75781 PARIS
France

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Total cost
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Participants (8)