Conference on the Spanish Aeronautical Supply Chain - Aeronautics, a sector with future

PLATA attended to the national Conference on the aeronautical supply chain of the future with TEDAE, Spanish Association of Defense, Security, Aeronautics and Space Technologies. It was held in Málaga TechPark on February 14, “the day of lovers… of aeronautics”. Among the objectives of the day was to make contacts and interact with companies in the aeronautical sector (Airbus, ITP Aero, Aernnova, Aertec, Cimpa Spain, Clue Technologies, Europavia, Escribano Mechanical & Engineer, Inventia Kinetics, Mades, MTorres, Tecnaclia o Tecnobit, among others). There were also the Andalusian aeronautical cluster, AERA y Hegan.

HELACS

Issues related to the recovery of composite materials is gaining more and more importance in the aviation sector and this line of research is being increasingly considered with more emphasis in the future projections of business strategies. From Aragón, AERA (Aragon aerospace cluster), AREX (Aragon Exterior) and AIR (Aviation International Recycling) representatives attended to the meeting. One of the issues that is causing the most exceptions is the future dismantling of aircraft where HELACS is part of that strategy for the aviation of the future, as well as the manufacturing and development of sustainable aircraft in the coming years.

Latest News HELACS

  • For aircrafts that are no longer in service, the owner considers the trade-off between direct resale and disassemble & recycled. Besides that, HELACS project (Holistic processes for the cost-effective and sustainable management of End of Life of Aircraft Composite Structures) is focused on the study of the second one of these options.

  • AITIIP Technology Centre leads HELACS, a European project which aims to develop a dual methodology of controlled comprehensive dismantling in order to make possible the classification, recycling and reuse of aircraft parts made of thermoset and thermoplastic composites that have reached their end of life. Annually, the aeronautical industry is depositing more than 40,000 tons of end-of-life composite material waste in landfills. Thanks to the recovery of materials, the technology proposed by HELACS will benefit the change towards an energy efficiency model.

  • You can now download the official HELACS project brochure. A project comes to transform the dismantling process of the aircraft of the future. HELACS employs novel robotics to recycle composite materials of large components. The HELACS process is based on the application of high water pressure that will selectively chop the thermoset parts into a dimension suitable for recycling. In addition, the pyrolysis process is used for the carbonization of the thermoset matrix to reuse the carbon fibers that overcome this chemical decomposition.
This project has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 101007871
 Sky 2 UE