Composites in the aeronautic sector

CONTEXT OF THE AERONAUTIC SETCOR

8000 aircrafts will come to the end of their lives by 2030 and there is no existing solution to manage them except for store aging and landfilling. The goal now is to have recyclable and recycled materials for the aeronautic industry to overcome this issue.

TH USE OF COMPOSITES

The aeronautic industry requires materials that are light and high performance at the same time. To answer these specifications and needs, composites have been widely used in this sector in the past years. They are known to be much lighter than metals alone while having in some cases better mechanical properties. Moreover, they are highly versatile, as their physical and mechanical properties can often be tailored to a specific application by adjusting the material’s composition (% of fibre and % of matrix). 

In addition to achieving very good performances, composites allow to reduce the carbon footprint and consequently the environmental impact of planes. Indeed, composites reduce the weight of a plane, and each kg of weight saved in a plane can reduce CO2 emissions by 16t per plane per year. Nevertheless, this improvement in environmental impact doesn’t change the fact that today, 98% of carbon and glass fibre reinforced composites end up in landfills at the end of their lifespan. Moreover, 80% of the fibres used are manufactured outside of Europe making the European market dependent on other countries. 

MC4 PROJECT SOLUTIONS

To answer the objective of the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), the MC4 project aims at finding four pathways to recycle composites, with two for the Carbon fibre reinforced composites (CFRC) and two for the Glass fibre reinforced composites (GFRC). In addition to obtaining a circular value chain, recycling these composites in Europe would mean having a raw material supply independence with the recycled materials becoming the new virgin materials to manufacture new composite parts. 

In the project, FIDAMC and GAIKER are in charge of recycling the uncured carbon fibres pre-preg from the aeronautic sector. If you want to know more about the work being done by these two partners, you can read this article : Short term recycling methods of uncured carbon fibres pre-preg – MC4 Project

TO LEARN MORE

FIDAMC website: FIDAMC | Research, Development and Application of Composite Materials

Gaiker website: Home – Gaiker

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