Ebook: Innovation for Sustainable Aviation in a Global Environment

The Sixth European Aeronautics Days 2011, organised by the Spanish research agency CDTI and supported by the European Commission, took place in the Madrid Palacio Municipal de Congresos from 30th March to 1st April 2011. It was the largest Aerodays conference so far with more than 1400 participants coming from 45 countries, with an extensive exhibition area and numerous side-events of strategic importance to Europe's aeronautical research and innovation.

The Aerodays offered a great opportunity for aviation stakeholders at all levels to meet and discuss the latest advances in aeronautics and air transport, not only in Europe but also worldwide. Representatives from industry, research centres, universities and politics highly appreciated the opportunity to receive top-level information on strategies as well as on the advances of specific research programmes. The unique chance to meet and communicate across all branches and hierarchies opened up new partnerships and encouraged potential future collaboration.

Furthermore, the Aerodays offered the perfect scenario and timing to present Europe's Vision for Aviation, ‘Flightpath 2050’.

Innovation for Sustainable Aviation in a Global Environment

The conference motto is clearly directed towards the future challenges of aviation as well as to the recent political strategies of the European Commission. The general messages from the Commission and high level industrial and research leaders provided a clear view on the way ahead in research and innovation. It also highlighted the importance of aeronautical research within the Framework Programme.

Preparing the Future of Aviation

On the basis of global development it is evident that only in a joint European effort can the future in aeronautics be mastered. Industrial needs and environmental goals require research and innovation efforts leading eventually to an economically viable and environmentally sustainable air transport where aircraft, airports, air traffic management and operation contribute to a balanced and overall optimised system.

Aviation Technologies

Excellent overviews and insights into various community research projects were provided. The very good progress in greening of the air transport with topics in flight physics-, noise and vibration-, propulsion- and climate research as well as solutions for alternative fuels were presented. Equally important contributors to future aviation goals are air traffic operations and certainly cost efficiency, including structures-, systems-, production- and maintenance technologies.

Within the section pioneering the air transport a high emphasis was placed on the longer-term view into the future of aeronautics and the innovative solutions with a high potential for fulfilling the goals of Europe's ambitious vision.

The safety and security sessions provided an insight into the overall mandatory certification aspects of novel technologies and presented important developments in securing the air transport system of the future.

National and International Programmes

The excellent results in Europe for building the future of aviation are not only based on programmes of the European Commission but are a common achievement together with the specific research programmes of the Member States. European institutions and national research establishments have also aligned their goals to the European vision. Complimentary research and the advances in forming sustainable European networks supported by initiatives of the European Commission have resulted in outstanding achievements and an engaged and powerful workforce in industry, research and academia.

However, aeronautics is part of a global community and dependent on worldwide developments. Thus international cooperation is mandatory and strongly supported.

Europe's Vision ‘Flightpath 2050’

Europe's Vision for Aviation ‘Flightpath 2050’, setting out a European vision for the future of aviation, emphasises where those working in aviation see the priorities for the relevant policy, research and innovation instruments. It is a high-level vision of Europe leading with an aviation industry that is clean, competitive, safe and secure. At the Aerodays perspectives were shown how to implement this new Vision 2050 through a way forward to the new Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).

Post-Conference Proceedings

After almost ten years of European research within the 6th and 7th Research Framework Programmes (2002–2006; 2007–2013) and in view of the coming Framework Programme ‘Horizon 2020’ (2014–2020) the Commission decided to support the publication of this special issue of the Conference Proceedings of the Aerodays in Madrid. Assisted by the Scientific Advisory Committee, selected papers from the policy and technical sessions were collected with the intention to provide the reader with a representative picture of the main themes and issues addressed.

The proceedings are divided into three main chapters:

• Policy and Strategy

• Aviation Technologies and Operations

• National and International Programmes

Due to the strategic importance of this conference the proceedings constitute a reference document providing an overview on aeronautical research within Europe especially devoted to Commission supported programmes and networks.

Scientific Advisory Committee

A Scientific Advisory Committee was set up by the European Commission in order to provide advice on the scientific and technical content of the Aerodays Conference as well as evaluate and coordinate the final content of these proceedings. Its members were:

Fred Abbink

Luis da Costa Campos

Anders Gustafsson

Jim Lawler

José Martin Hernandez

Fernando Monge Gómez

Cesar Puentes

Christian Pusch

Dieter Schmitt

Clyde Warsop

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge our gratitude and thanks to the members of the Scientific Advisory Committee and to the authors of the papers for their great effort and cooperation to realise these Post-Conference Proceedings. We would also like to thank sincerely Jean-Pierre Sanfourche of the Council of European Aerospace Societies (CEAS), who acted as the co-ordinating editor for the whole book, and Ms Krisztina Simonne-Paldy of the Aeronautics team of DG Research Innovation of the European Commission, who implemented all the editorial requirements.

Joachim Szodruch

Dietrich Knörzer

Contacts:

Dietrich Knörzer (dietrich.knoerzer@ec.europa.eu)

Joachim Szodruch (Joachim.szodruch@dlr.de)

Strong Spain's commitment to the Aeronautics sector: financial resources for innovation, public procurement, internationalisation of innovative activities, cooperation among public administrations, incorporation of innovative talent into national aeronautics companies.

The European Commission has launched a demanding innovation process in air transport and aeronautics in Europe. It has to complete what it has been started and to look beyond immediate concerns and to build further on its commitments. The report ‘lightpath 2050 – Europe's Vision for Aviation’ was introduced, a basic document which has been established by a group of high-level representatives from the European aviation industry. The new White Paper ‘ransport Road Map’ was also presented. Technology and innovation are key-solutions for the future.

Europe needs to keep its place in the skies to keep its place in Europe. Two parallel objectives are presented in ‘Flightpath 2050’: the first in maintaining global leadership, the second is serving society's needs. They are closely interconnected because this is only by serving society's needs that we will be able to keep a position at the forefront of the global economy. A new instrument has been proposed to bring together all the relevant EU instruments: the ‘Common Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation Funding’. This will allow put in place truly crosscutting strategies covering the whole innovation system, from research to technical developments, to demonstration and market uptake.

Madrid: a regional actor of the European Aeronautics Community.

Europe: the importance of the Aeronautics Sector, a common strategic framework in order to create a much higher impact and to simplify access, a new vision for aviation ‘Flightpath 2050’.

The need for efficiency will lead to the coordination of different means of transport; environment is one of the major challenges affecting the growth of aviation industry; Air Transport will only be able to meet its emission reduction targets if sustainable alternative fuels are deployed.

EU Vision 2050: the time is now. In 2050: 90% of European journeys will be completed in under 4 hours, flights will not be more than 1 minute late, Air Traffic Management will handle 25 million flights per year, we'll have reduced CO2 by 75%, NOx by 90% and noise by 65%. SESAR must be correctly implemented. Bio-fuels development needs a carefully orchestrated collaboration, with clear reporting structures and clear responsibilities. Timing is everything. The success of the Vision 2050 comes down to determination, investment and timing.

The European challenges for aerospace are: global leadership and attention for societal needs; world class capabilities and facilities in research, test and validation as well as in education; clusters and networks; technological basis for European products; European and national programmes in competition and cooperation. To achieve these goals it is necessary to jointly define European research and innovation strategies by all stakeholders and to implement them in a coordinated way covering the entire innovation chain from basic research via technology development up to demonstration. A network of multi-disciplinary technology clusters should be created based on collaboration between industry, universities and research institutes. The DLR and DLR@UNI can be seen as a prototype of a new generation of links for research.

The considerations addressed in ‘Flightpath 2050’ are shared by the entire Rotorcraft Community. The author's vision is this: by 2050, vertical flight shall be a mode of flying of a significant percentage of future aircraft, a portion of the continuum of flying activity. So, leveraging on vertical flight state-of-the-art technology will mean to improve mobility within and across our countries.

The ASD (AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe) represents the aerospace industry in Europe, which generates a turnover in excess of EUR 100 billion and employs nearly a million highly-skilled European citizens. The ASD encourages European policy makers to: (i) create a dedicated funded aeronautics programme; (ii) ensure the stability of instruments recently deployed in FP7, Private Public Partnerships and joint Technology Initiatives; (iii) support the development of SESAR. How to turn Vision 2050 into a reality?

The paper “Airports – suitable and sustainable gateways to the globalised world” concentrates on several different strategies, based upon Munich airport experience, to meet the different future challenges for the airport industry: interconnected multimodal transport system, expansion of infrastructure, sustainable measures that will ensure that growth is largely achieved on a carbon-neutral basis, strategic system partnerships, support from the airport region.

The Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) programme is the technological pillar of the Single Sky European Initiative, founded by the European Union and Eurocontrol. Its role is to develop the new generation of ATM technologies and procedures to better cope with the predicted increase in air traffic over the next twenty years. This paper gives an update on this programme and concentrates on its importance for innovation in the aeronautical sector.

‘Indra’, the Spanish IT leading company, committed to the EU programmes and SESAR in particular, is playing a leading role among the ground industry manufacturers in the domain of Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Airport technologies. Three elements have to be reinforced: cooperation between ANSPs (Air Navigation Service Providers) and ground technology suppliers, collaboration between ANSPs in major developments, partnership between the public sector and the industry.

Three thoughts. First: 2050 is far but we need a vision for this horizon. Second: Europe will not reach its public policy goals – prosperity, environment, safety, job, etc. – without a strong European aviation industry to deliver the means. Third: the rise of the aeronautics related RTD at the European level must be sustained in the coming years and even be increased. It is more than important to continue the RTD effort in the FP8 dedicated to Aeronautics and Air Transport. Public and private funding should be blended within the Framework Programme.

The author gives in this paper some thoughts on how to respond to the future travelling public expectations, viz to fly in greener aircraft with access to their digital world in flight with the best level of quality and comfort. Airbus is ready to take on these challenges but the question is: “will the EU be alongside Airbus in the endeavour?” Various examples of Airbus innovations are presented: fly-by-wire A320, double-deck A380, brake-to-vacate technology, ALCAS (Advanced Low Cost Aircraft Structures), ‘MAAXIMUS’ project for novel and cost effective composite structures, active participation in Clean Sky, leadership of the Smart Fixed Wing Aircraft (SFWA) technology demonstrator, etc. Airbus has proposed a concept plane to help crystallise its modern ideas and shape them in a communicable form. Innovation has become the major competitive differentiator.

The environmental challenge has become over the last ten years more and more the main driver for future technologies and future aircraft architectures. The paper deals with the following topics: from local to global – anticipating the oil peak, another political and societal challenge – ACARE and environment – Clean Sky, a game-changing Public-Private Partnership – the numerous technical areas speeded up by the environmental challenge – Primes, Tiers One, Research Organisations, Universities, SMEs, are the Clean Sky Partners – the full set of demonstrators involving Clean sky Members and many Partners – Clean Sky will deliver main demonstrators from 2014 – the variety of means – Game-changing concepts will tackle further environmental challenges.

Towards the end of 2010 Vice-President Kallas and Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn invited a group of European top-level representatives of the European aviation¹ industry to develop a new vision for European aviation with a 2050 horizon. The aeronautics part of this vision encompasses all matters relating to the air vehicle, comprising the vehicle and its systems, its technology, design and manufacture as well as its maintenance, repair and overhaul.

Funded equally by the European Commission and Europe's aeronautical industry, Clean Sky is a Joint Technology Initiative designed to speed up the technology breakthroughs needed to achieve ACARE's environmental goals. As a public-private partnership, it aims to develop, mature and validate key “clean technologies” for aviation in order to shorten the time to market for new solutions tested on Full Scale Demonstrators. With a budget estimated at EUR 1.6 billion over 7 years, Clean Sky is expected to lead the earlier introduction of new, radically greener Air Transport products.

The following text provides a presentation of the organisation and current state of play of the initiative as well as an overview of the flagship technologies developed within the programme, each one of those leading to five observations on the promising approach of research and innovation promoted by Clean Sky.

Most of the requirements fixed by the ACARE Vision 2020 for civil aircraft operations are conditioned by the improvement of aircraft aerodynamic performance, which necessitates using technologies able to achieve a more effective, environmentally friendly air transport system. The European coordination action so-called KATnet has identified and assessed key aerodynamic technologies that offer solutions to take up the challenges of this Vision 2020. These technologies are highlighted here below.

As of today, analysis and design methods in aeronautical industry are based on simulations with a unique set of input data and model variables. But real operating conditions are a superposition of numerous uncertainties under which the industrial products operate, the presence of which is a major source of risk in the design decision process. The European project “NODESIM-CFD” (Non Deterministic Simulation for CFD Based Design Methodologies) – www.nodesim. eu – aims at providing tools able to evaluate and quantify uncertainties in aerodynamic and thermal performance predictions, thus contributing to support the goals of enhanced design confidence, risk reduction and improved safety.

With 13 partners from 8 countries the EU project SADE (Smart High Lift Devices for Next Generation Wings) aims at making a major step forward in the development and evaluation of the potential of morphing airframe technologies. The project contributes to the research work called for to achieve the reduction of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions through new, intelligent, low-weight structures. Research into ‘smart’ structures and morphing airframes will open up new horizons in lightweight aircraft design.

With the continued objective of increasing aircraft performances whilst reducing the environmental impact, research is being carried out to find innovative solutions to influence air flow using simple actuators. If the aerodynamic configu-ration of future aircraft could be modified in real time in flight, then the aircraft's performance could be continually adapted to provide optimum aerodynamic characteristics. Among the innovative solutions, the use of plasma technologies has shown itself to be very promising from both a performance point of view and in terms of the diversity in potential applications from external and internal flow control, combustion, enhancement and noise attenuation. The main advantages of plasmas devices are their manufacturing and integration simplicity, low power consumption, ability for real time control at high frequency and their robustness.