JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #119 - March 2018 - 63

Aeronautics
A demountable composite wing box for private planes

Sports
Sustainable composite manufacturing kicks into high gear
Medical
lmproving lives with carbon composites

SOLUTlONS

Civil engineering
Repair and replacement of concrete pipes with carbon composites

63
66
69
71
aeronautics SOLUTlONS

A demountable composite
wing box for private planes
The quest for lower environmental impact throughout an aircraft's service life
along with increasingly stringent passenger safety requirements are leading
to extensive research in the design of new airplane models.
Nicolas Vetel,
Plant Manager, Rochefort
Rescoll
JeaN claude Graudidier,
Professor
Institut PPRIME ENSMA

T

he E-Fan project for the first
all-electric, all-composite
stunt plane was initiated
by Aéro Composites Saintonge
(located in France's south-western
Charente region) and financed
by Poitou Charentes department,

Fedex, Aquitaine region, Frensh
State and Airbus. Under the
project, Rescoll and the Institut
Pprime physics and engineering
research laboratory worked
together to design the E-Fan's
wing unit and monitor its test
validation. Validated by the French
civil aviation authority DGAC,
the composite wing, which was

inspired by Colomban1, or classic,
architecture, demonstrated that it is
possible to build an electric private
plane - the first step towards the
potential future use of the technology for very large transport aircraft.
The Neofac project
As a follow-up to the E-Fan project,
SRC Rescoll (located in Bordeaux
and Rochefort) and the Institut
Pprime research laboratory (which
is affiliated with the National
Higher School of Mechanics and
Aeroengineering ISAE-ENSMA
and the University of Poitiers)

decided in 2015 to continue their
research on the development of
innovative aeronautical structures.
The partnership of stakeholders
from the Nouvelle Aquitaine
region initiated the 2½-year-long
Neofac project, which was 50%
financed by the European regional
development fund FEDER, out of
a global budget of about €500,000.
"The Neofac project consisted of
designing, fabricating and testing the
full-scale prototype of a demountable
composite wing box for a private
plane, subject to Section 23 of Federal
Aviation Regulations (FAR).

Focus

Neofac wing tested up to 13G on Rescoll's benches
(1 ) For French aeronautical engineer Michel Colomban, who designed the world's smallest
twin-engined airplane in the 1970s.

The Association des Structures de Recherche sous
Contrat (ASRC, an association of contract research organizations) unites some forty private R&D organizations from
all over France. These are recognized by the French public
investment bank Bpifrance for their capacity to provide
companies with innovative solutions in a number of sectors, including health, food processing, energy, materials,
transportation, logistics, NITC, defence, and safety.

www.asrc.fr

N°119 March 2018 /

jec composites magazine

63
http://www.asrc.fr
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #119 - March 2018
