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EASN Newsletter - July 2014


EASN News

4th EASN Workshop on Flight Physics and Aircraft Design, RWTH Aachen, October 27-29, 2014 - Abstract submission deadline: 16/07/2014

EASNEASN is delighted to invite you to its 4th out of a series of specialized Workshops, this time in the fields of Flight Physics and Aircraft Design. The EASN Workshop will be held on October 27-29, 2014 in Aachen, Germany in the premises of RWTH Aachen University. The Workshop will be co-chaired by Prof. Eike Stumpf and Prof. Wolfgang Schröder.
This year’s workshop primarily aims at offering its participants a forum to meet and present among relevant audience, the latest advancements in the areas of Flight Physics and Aircraft Design individually, as well as at fostering the cooperation and interaction between them on a multidisciplinary basis. Additionally, it is expected to serve, like its predecessors, as a major dissemination event for running projects and as a forum to exchange novel and innovative ideas for future research. During this 3-day event, the General Assembly meeting of the EASN Association will also take place. Updated information about the Workshop will be posted on a regular basis on the EASN website as well as at the 4th EASN International Workshop minisite.

ACARE/DGLR Conference: European Aviation Technology Convention, Berlin 4-5 November, 2014

ACAREIn cooperation with the Advisory Council of Aviation Research & Innovation in Europe (ACARE) and supported by the European Commission, the German Aerospace Association DGLR in cooperation with its European partner organisations of CEAS, organises a European two days conference designed as a platform for high level representatives of the European Commission and Member States, research institutions as well as of aviation stakeholders’ associations and of industry.

This conference will address the key issues in respect of the challenges to Europe concerning Aeronautics and Air Transport. Special emphasis will be given to the coordination and synergy aspects for research and innovation within the European Research Area for Aviation considering in particular the possibilities for addressing the untapped potential within the EU-12 Member States. The conference addresses in particular the representatives of industry, research institutions and public institutions responsible for R&D, innovation and technology strategies. EASN will be represented in the ACARE/DGLR Conference by its chairman, Prof. Spiros Pantelakis.
More information about this Conference can be found here: http://www.acare2014.dglr.de/

ACARE new INCO Group

CleanSky2ACARE has recently launched a Working Group to update the ACARE INCO Strategy. Explicitly, the ACARE New INCO WG (ACARE IRG Sub-group) held its Kick-off meeting on June 5th, 2014 in Brussels. EASN is represented in this Working Group by Prof. Dimitris Drikakis, Cranfield University.

The next ACARE INCO WG meeting, is expected to take place on September 18th, 2014 at the European Commission buildings, in Brussels.

For more information visit the ACARE website

ACARE WG5 Workshop on "Education and Training Needs for Aviation Engineers and Researchers in Europe"

CleanSky2The ACARE WG5 Workshop on "Education and Training Needs for Aviation Engineers and Researchers in Europe" was successfully carried out on June 13th 2014, at the EC premises in Brussels. Representatives from the EC, European Industry, Academia and research community, had the chance to get together and discuss on the training needs of engineers both at Academic level, as well as throughout their professional career. In the lively discussion panels which took place, the different requirements of the different actors were pointed out.

Although different in nature, the common ground seems to be that although there is in general no shortage of engineers, specific measures may be needed so as to allow the easier and more efficient integration of engineers in the European Industry and supply chain. To this end and in order to meet the evolving needs of the European Industry, interaction between HR supply (Universities) and demand (large industries, SMEs, Research Establishments, MRO etc) needs to be enhanced.

The presentations from the Education workshop are available on the ACARE website.

Interview of Prof. Franco Bernelli Zazzera on European Aviation Engineering Education and Accreditation

EASNProf. Franco Bernelli Zazzera, Chairman of PEGASUS and Head of Dept. of Aerospace Science and Technology - Politecnico di Milano, provides an interview on the quality of the current aviation engineering education in Europe. Further to that, he expresses his views on the usefulness of creating an integrated Europe-wide aviation system by harmonizing the content of the curricula for aviation engineers, as well as he comments on the utility of establishing a common European accreditation system.
Read the full interview of Prof. Franco Bernelli Zazzera on the EASN website

Interview of Prof. Jan van Ingen on European Aviation Engineering Education and Accreditation

EASNProf. Jan van Ingen, Emeritus Professor of Aerodynamics and Dean of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft, reviews, appraises and recommends, on the existing European Aviation Engineering Educational system. Moreover, Prof. Jan van Ingen expresses his views on the usefulness and potential benefits of establishing a common European accreditation system in the near future.
To read the interview of Prof. Jan van Ingen, including the main conclusions of the two relevant ACARE/ASTERA studies, accompanied with Prof. van Ingen’s comments and remarks, visit the EASN website

A few remarks about the 2014 ASD Annual Convention held in Prague, and the role and voice of EASN presented in this forum

EASNThe 2014 ASD Annual Convention was successfully held in Prague, Czech Republic, from the 23rd until the 25th of April. Spread over three days, and under the banner of strengthening European prosperity and competitiveness, the AeroSpace and Defence Association’s annual convention was organized with an interdisciplinary programme, an integrated Young Professional Forum and a Technology Forum for Business and Talents.

EASN was represented in the Convention by its Vice-chairman, Prof. Zdobyslaw Goraj who participated in the panel devoted to “The 4D of Aerospace competitiveness: energy, mobility, research and skills – Debate 3: Clean Sky 2 and beyond: Inclusive research towards the most energy-efficient aircraft ever”. The discussion was mainly concentrated on Clean Sky 2 and Horizon 2020 in aspects of chances, challenges, opportunities, as well as risks and limits especially for Academia and SMEs. To read the overall conclusions and remarks about the 2014 ASD Convention, prepared by Prof. Goraj, please visit the EASN website.

ACARE Plenary

EASNProfessor Zdobyslaw Goraj, Academic representative in ACARE Plenary, informs the EASN members about the recent progress made in the frame of ACARE Plenary. To read the latest achievements and future plans of ACARE plenary, as depicted by Prof. Goraj, please visit the EASN website.


EASN endorsed projects: Latest achievements

IASSThe first half of the project have mainly concerned the development of self-healing multifunctional formulations. During the first six months of the second half of the project the research has mainly been focused on the processing of self-healing multifunctional materials into a real Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) panel. The activities have also included the upscaling for the production in batch of the components. More specifically the upscaling has concerned the microcapsules for the self-healing functionality, hardeners with the flame resistance functionality and epoxy matrices in the amounts necessary for the manufacturing of the CFRP panels. For more information visit the IASS project website.

IN-LIGHT

During the last consortium meeting, held at the premises of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the main results achieved during the first period were presented. Flexible plastic electrochromic (EC) devices based on viologen-modified TiO2 nanostructured electrodes and solid electrolyte have been successfully fabricated. A TOLED stack with an overall transmittance higher than 65% and highly transparent and conductive AZO coatings on PET have been also developed. The last generations of EC and TOLED devices are currently being tested. A summary of the activities and main results related to the development of TOLEDs up to this point indicated, among others, that Up-scaling of TOLED materials and devices in pilot production line is in progress. Future activities will be focused on the scaling up and the fabrication of tandem devices. For more information please visit the In Light project website.

INMA The INMA project aiming to provide a technology to reduce current development costs incurred by the fabrication of complex sheet metal parts was completed last month. The fabricated demonstrators (engine and airframe components) have shown promising results about the potential of the developed technology. Along the project duration significant achievements were produced in terms of incremental sheet forming data of aeronautical alloys, process numerical simulation, forming means, material data and techniques to predict geometric deviations. Some representative parts of the project activity will be shown during the next Farnborough International Airshow at TWI’s stand.For more information visit the INMA project website.

ENCOMB ENCOMB finished at the end of April 2014. 19 extended NDT methods for pre-bond surface quality assurance were tested and optimized and up to 10 of them could be developed to reliably detect individual common contaminants down to critical threshold values. 12 extended NDT methods were investigated and optimized for weak bond detection. Weak bonds due to pre-bond release agent or moisture contaminations could be detected by 6 technologies, poorly cured bonds by 4. A validation step concluded the ENCOMB developments and was passed by 5 of the surface-sensitive ENDT methods and by 3 of the bond quality assessment techniques. The work performed within ENCOMB is an important contribution towards implementing adhesive bonding of load-critical composite aircraft structures by means of an appropriate quality assurance concept. For more information visit the ENCOMB project website.

CORSAIR CORSAIR is now in the heart of its development, as the theoretical model to describe cold spray deposition with Al and Ti alloys has been implemented and gives the basis for developing customized accessories and a new deposition plant. Furthermore the first deposition protocols for shop repair with Al and Ti alloys have been developed and further refinement are in progress. Up to 25 aeronautical components exhibiting different defects have been selected, properly described, and the target properties after repair have been defined. A laboratory characterization plan and quality assurance of the performed repair is in progress to ensure a high-quality and reliable MRO process. For more information visit the CORSAIR project website..

i-VISION i-VISION, the aim of which is to support human factors design and validation activities in aircraft cockpits during the early phases of the product life-cycle. Nine months after the official Kick-off, i-VISION completed the first phase of its 36-month period. In doing so, i-VISION worked in order to collect all the necessary input, mainly from the industrial partners, for developing the requirements in terms of the required technology and the application of the technology (i.e. industrial use case requirements). These requirements have been analysed in order to develop the specifications of the i-VISION technological modules (Human-Cockpit Operations Analysis Module, Semantic Virtual Cockpit Module, and Virtual Cockpit Design Environment Module). During the upcoming second phase, the detailed design and implementation of the individual i-VISION components will be performed, whereas in the third phase the consortium will define detailed pilot cases and scenarios for conducting preliminary validations of intermediate technological prototypes. For more information visit the i-VISION project website.

QUICOMCurrently the project has arrived in phase 2, which is the core phase of the project. For optimized micro-scale and meso-scale material characterization, different porosity analysis techniques have been compared and evaluated. Optimized image acquisition protocols as well as reliable and robust image processing methods have been developed to separate the different components of composites. Furthermore simulation scenarios for the different applications were proposed and the corresponding radiographs were simulated. QUICOM is currently preparing software tools for the envisaged QUICOM technology platform. Efforts have been started to develop a method of transformation of micro-CT images into voxel finite element models. Finally, for analysis and visualization of results two approaches called FiberScout and MetaTracts have been generated in order to investigate a 3DXCT dataset of fiber reinforced composites in a simple and fast way.For more information, please visit the QUICOM project website.


News from the Aeronautical community

CATER During its first six months of activities, CATER has mainly focused on building up the framework on how to best accomplish the classification and assessment of the actual European Research and Innovation projects on the Time Efficiency in aviation, strictly linked to the EU SRIA. Door-to-Door model and R&I Assessment Framework are the two pillars of this framework now available on the CATER website whereas requirements and design of the CASK are expected to have been finalized by the end of April.
In keeping-up with the vision of 90% of travellers within Europe being able to complete their journeys door-to-door within 4 hours by the year 2050, the CATER project firstly needed to establish a model adequately describing the very notion of a D2D travel process, thereby creating a common language and understanding for the theme of Time-Efficiency. Based on this, an Assessment Framework has been developed and utilized to assess past and running EC funded projects, and leveraged to identify future evolutionary needs and opportunities for innovation.
Τo become part of the CATER R&I Community and stay updated with the latest news, activities and achievements of the CATER project, join our CATER LinkedIn group.

PROMO-AIRHaving completed its first year, the Promo-Air project has successfully organized its 1st Workshop, where representatives from Academia, Industry and the EC were invited to participate. The workshop was hosted on the EC premises in Brussels, Belgium on March 30th, 2014 and focused on demonstrating the means to attract young people to become interested in Aeronautics.
The participants shared their views regarding the guidelines that should be followed in order to produce attractive visual educational material and establish a link between schools and Universities. The aforementioned roadmaps will be implemented in the major dissemination event, the European Aviation Week. In this event, students from all over Europe will have the opportunity to visit Universities and Institutes of their local society and explore the fascinating world of Aeronautics through educational material and hands-on experience. For more information on how your university or institute could be involved in this initiative, please follow this link. For more information on the Promo-Air project, please visit the promo-air website.

HAIC The HAIC Consortium is pleased to announce that the HAIC Advisory Board Mini Forum will be held on September 18th & 19th in Paris, France. In the frame of the HAIC project this 2-day event primarily aims to offer its participants a forum to meet and present among relative audience, the latest advancements of the project and further exchange on project orientation with international partners.
FAA, EASA and European Commission are to present their view on this research topic during plenary sessions. Then sessions on several topics will be organized for participants of this event: HAIC consortium, HAIC Advisory Board, HIWC (High Ice Water Content) project, Ice Crystal Consortium and the Engine Icing Working Group. For more information visit the HAIC project website.

HIKARIHIKARI has completed successfully the organization of the 2nd HIKARI Workshop, where more than 50 participants from Industry, Academia, EC and Japanese authorities had the unique chance to attend and share their views regarding the technological synergies that will enhance international cooperation, which is the key for the realization of High Speed Transport (HST).
With all this experience gained, the consortium has sped up its activities in order to complete a joint technology and demonstration roadmap showing what Europe / Japan cooperation can create and what the benefits of this cooperation on HST may be. The latest advancements in the area of HST and the benefits gained from international collaboration will be discussed in the upcoming 3rd HIKARI Workshop that will be held in Brussels, Belgium on September 22 – 26, 2014. Updated information about the workshop will be posted on a regular basis on the HIKARI project website.


News from EASN members

BITUNew methodology for generation of realistic three dimensional computational models of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) parts, dedicated for x-ray imaging research has been developed at the Biomedical Technology Unit of the University of Patras, Greece within the framework of QUICOM FP7 EU project.
This new method, which is based on combination of solid geometry primitives, allows generation of CFRP models, either as a set of stacked layers that contain continuous carbon bundles or as a braided textile from woven carbon bundles. Porosity, delamination, missing carbon bundles and non-carbon inclusions are some of the modeled defects. Suitable for evaluation of the appropriateness of any X-ray based imaging techniques like Cone-Beam CT and Tomosynthesis, as inspection techniques for non-destructive testing of CFRP parts.

ICEAFThe 4th International Conference of Engineering Against Failure – ICEAF IV has been announced. The event will be held in Skiathos island, Greece on 24-26 June 2015. ICEAF IV is co-organized by the Laboratory of Technology & Strength of Materials (LTSM) and the Hellenic Metallurgical Society (HMS), under the auspices of the Federation of European Material Societies (FEMS) and the European Aeronautics Science Network (EASN).
The scope of the Conference is to attract interdisciplinary work dedicated to understanding the underlying physics of engineering failure, experimental and theoretical failure analysis, model the structural response with regard to local and global failure and structural design for preventing of engineering failure.
For more information please visit: http://ltsm.mead.upatras.gr/lab/lang_en/conference/view/6 .

PANPhD and post-doctoral position in modelling and analysis of elasto-acoustic waves in periodic media
The Polish Academy of Sciences is seeking for talented researchers for two PhD and one post-doc position. Details of these openings can be found here for the two PhD positions, and here for the post-doc position. The Application deadline has been set for August 4th, 2014. For more information please visit: bernelliwww.easn.net/research-mobility-activities/.

CranfieldEnhance Your Career
Cranfield University offers a wide range of Professional Development programmes.

  • MSc Advanced Lightweight Structures and Impact
  • Finite Element Analysis short course November 2015
  • Introduction to Aircraft Stress Analysis short course June 2015
  • Composite Material Structures short course May 2015
For details on these, and the rest of our portfolio please visit: www.cranfield.ac.uk/study

READ

The 11th International Seminar "Research and Education in Aircraft Design" (READ 2014) will be held on October 15-17, 2014 at the "COMFORT" Hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania. The organizer of this seminar, which is oriented towards the Eastern and Western European aviation scientific community, is Antanas Gustaitis Aviation Institute of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University

Since 1994, and every second year, the Seminar takes place as a general forum for exchange of information about the progress in the aerospace engineering research. During the past years, the Seminar has travelled from Warsaw (Poland), through Vilnius (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia), Tartu (Estonia), twice - Brno (Czech Rep.) and now arrives in Vilnius again. For more information please visit: http://www.read.vgtu.lt/index.php/2014/2014s