Thu, 23 January, 2025
We are pleased to announce the launch of the three-year PLEIADES project, which aims to address the need for advanced composite materials for the aerospace industry.
The composites aerostructures market is projected to grow to 116 billion Euros by 2030 as a result of the increasing demand for advanced materials for aircraft manufacturing. The desired materials need to be lightweight and able to withstand harsh environments to improve aircraft performance and deliver cost savings.
PLEIADES (‘Advancing Aerospace Composites through Induction Welding and New Vitrimeric Formulations Enhanced by Integrated Photonic Sensors, Providing Data to Digital Supply Chain, SHM, Maintenance’) will make significant steps towards meeting the requirements of the aerospace industry by bringing together a range of expertise, disciplines and technologies to contribute to the advancement of composite aerostructures and promote the digital transformation in aviation.
The project partners will bring together a variety of capabilities covering the formulation and characterisation of new composite materials, automation of induction welding processes for composites through integrated sensing, disassembly of composites joints, healing, and maintenance schedules.
This will be complemented by the development of passive PIC based multi sensors and a unified QA-SHM methodology, as well as extensive modelling for induction welding and the development of material, healing, damage propagation, and de-icing models.
All of these disciplines will be pursued in synergy with the Clean Aviation partnership to address the needs for high-volume sustainable manufacturing that integrates inspection, recycling and circularity in the aerospace industry. A maintenance and repair protocol will be developed along with an innovative SHM methodology and a digital twin that will contribute to the digital research infrastructure. It is expected that, by making full use of the new technologies to promote sustainability and circularity, cost savings of at least 30%-40% can be achieved.
TWI is coordinating the PLEIADES project, which includes the following project partner organisations:
- EREVNITIKO PANEPISTIMIAKO INSTITOUTO SYSTIMATON EPIKOINONION KAI YPOLOGISTON(Greece)
- INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICA CENTRUM (Belgium)
- TALOS ANALYTICS IKE (Greece)
- ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS EE (Greece)
- POLITECNICO DI TORINO (Italy)
- EVEKTOR SRO (Czechia)
- POLITECNICO DI MILANO (Italy)
- COLLINS AEROSPACE IRELAND, LIMITED (Ireland)
- CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY (United Kingdom)
- ASSOCIATION EUROPEENNE DE LINDUSTRIE DES COMPOSITES (Belgium)
- BRUNEL COMPOSITES CENTRE - BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON (United Kingdom)
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or [CINEA]. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
The PLEIADES project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101192721.