The sustainability of aviation is fundamental to the implementation of European commitments and policies, including the European Green Pact or the new industrial strategy for Europe, The EU's carbon neutrality and carbon neutrality, among other things, is one of the goals.
The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is the main way to contribute to the environmental objectives related to climate change. Aviation emits 2% of the total CO2, The main cause of global warming, and the target set is to emission reduction by 50% CO2 by 2050, emissions, which would be a doubling of the emissions produced in 2005. However, on current trends, projected growth in air traffic would lead to CO2 emissions that would be three times higher than today's by 2050 if the historical rate of technological improvements in aviation is taken into account.
The target committed by the aviation sector is to reduce CO2 emissions to 50% by 2050, including production processes.
The air transport industry plays an important role. And not only through the development of cleaner aircraft where, in commercial aviation, hydrogen looks set to overtake biofuels and electric propulsion. In addition to propulsion technologies, research is also being conducted on new, more efficient structural configurations y lighter materials. Industry, industrial environments and production processes also have a significant environmental impact. In fact, the whole life cycle must be considered emissions of an aircraft from design to end-of-life recycling, which implies consideration of total life-cycle emissions.
Innovation policies offer the opportunity for major changes in the aviation sector, both in products and processes.
In Europe, the Clean Sky Programme, which will be renamed Clean Aviation, has been and is the key instrument for, through technology, The EU's airport infrastructure and operations also have roadmaps to contribute to sustainable development goals. Airport infrastructure and operations also have roadmaps to contribute to sustainable development objectives, and in Europe innovation in this respect is planned and financed through SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research).
Clean Aviation's strategy to move from fossil fuel-based aviation to climate-neutral aviation is structured in two phases. In the first phase, around 2030, aviation would be decarbonised through the development of ultra-efficient aircraft, through the use of alternative and sustainable fuels, and through the introduction of new air transport concepts. The latter include the use of small electric aircraft or hybrid electric aircraft for short-range journeys, favouring short-haul mobility.
The second phase, in order to achieve neutrality, would involve developing hyper-efficient aircraft, use fully decarbonised energy sources such as liquid hydrogen, fuel cells or ultra-high energy density batteries.
AERTEC is the main partner of the Clean Sky 2 Programme, participating in this Programme through the PASSARO project (caPAbilities for innovative Structural and functional teSting of AeROstructures). PASSARO is a project that is being executed by an international consortium of Portuguese companies and research centres, together with AERTEC, and which addresses the research and development of different technologies. AERTEC has developed technologies in the field of manufacturing processes and to a greater extent of the aircraft functional verification processes, The study has also focused on technologies such as the use of the Technologies such as the augmented reality for operator assistance in computer-assisted testing, the increased connectivity between test media, process mining to exploit data acquired in test processes, fluid dynamic modelling and simulation for the characterisation of fluid leaks in leak testing, or the development of novel functional test systems capable of acquiring and processing signals from any aircraft system have been the subject of study and have given rise to advanced technological demonstrators.
In the framework of this project it has also been possible to contribute, through a transversal activity (Eco-Design), to the realisation of environmental impact studies of production processes. In collaboration with Airbus Defence & Space, and the Fraunhofer Institute, AERTEC recently participated in a study to evaluate the environmental impact of introducing collaborative robots and automatic carbon fibre taping processes in the production process of engine bonnets. These new processes contribute to the optimisation of the use of raw materials and the energy efficiency of the production process. By means of what is known as LCA (Life Cycle Assement) or life cycle assessment. Considering as a key factor the average energy consumed per unit of productive time, which combines environmental impact and productivity, it was determined that automation makes a definite contribution to the reduction of production time per product unit, and consequently to the reduction of the average net energy consumed. This constitutes a significant contribution to the environmental performance of the production process.
The findings of this work will be published in Macromolecular Symposia - TOP 2021 by Wiley Publishing, in a research article entitled: “Gate-to-gate study for collaborative robot-assisted composite parts manufacturing using a work effort unit approach”.”. The author of this article is co-author of the published article.
