HELACS at the “Digitalization, Circular Economy & Talent” spanish forum

The HELACS project has participated in the face-to-face conference “Digitization, Circular Economy and Talent” jointly organized by the AITIIP technology center and the Aragon Automotive Cluster in Zaragoza (Spain). It was an event in which experts from different sectors radiographed the current industrial ecosystem and its relationship with these three key vectors within the 2020-2030 European Horizon, sharing goals with HELACS and the Clean Sky 2 JU mission, related to the aviation industy green transition.

HELACS has been presented to dozens of representatives of the business, industrial, training and socio-political fabric of Aragon, who have had the opportunity to witness the strategic line of research of the project, which covers a key sector in this region: transportation. In that context, where sustainability is the final destination, the participants learn about the dissmantling process as one of the most innovative solutions to make effective the recycling of the aircrafts of the future.

The conference also hosted the presentation of other active national and European projects with which HELACS has been able to interact, such as the case of 3TINDUSTRY 4.0 or LEAN40SG. Between presentation and presentation, attendees and speakers have been able to enjoy a coffee-networking, in which they have had the opportunity to forge new professional contacts. Many of them have shown interest in the HELACS project, considering it revolutionary for the industry of the future.

 

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
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