Scientific and technological prospects
Scientific prospects
The activities in the GRAIN2 CSA open a wide range of scientific and technological prospects for future cooperation between European and Chinese organizations in the development and validation of new green technologies for aeronautical applications. Access to state of the art information on RTD activities in China and in Europe on greener technologies opens many opportunities for the development of new and enhanced methods aiming to the emission reduction, noise reduction and green materials which will enable to reduce the environmental impact of aircrafts and air transport.
Technological aspects
The technological prospects will derive from the new modelling possibilities of experimental and computational advanced design of civil aircraft vehicles taking into consideration many multidisciplinary effects currently not strongly accounted for in practice and mainly related with environmental issues. The GRAIN2Guidelines will define the strategic lines and methodologies (both, numerical modelling and experiments) to be developed in the near future for the reduction of environmental impact of air transport. These guidelines will bring flags and added values as a basis for setting up new RTD projects.
Contribution to EU policies
This project aims to enhance the open cooperation between Europe and China in the field of aeronautic research and engineering. Indeed this goal was achieved of the conclusions of the EU-China workshop in Aeronautics held in Beijing on April 15 2005, also confirmed on the latter Aerochina2 project final meeting in Brussels in September 2009 and the GRAIN Open Forum in Barcelona November 2012.
AEROCHINA 1 & 2 and GRAINCSA projects have been a very good example of leverage successful networking projects that were coordinated by CIMNE with the participation of many of the GRAIN2 partners. The contribution of both AEROCHINA and GRAIN projects to EU policies has been demonstrated trough the production of different collaborative development topics that was used for the definition of a FP7 Coordinated Call in 2010.
The specific scope of the GRAIN2proposal also fits within several aspects of the European Union policies. Improvement of the design, analysis and validation tools will help to build safer and more competitive aircrafts with improved environmental features (less emissions, less noise, less pollution). Indeed producing safer and cleaner airplanes is one of the targets to guarantee better protection of passengers. The enhancement of greener aircraft design, manufacturing and maintenance is one of the key aspects for a sustainable European aerospace industry meeting the challenges and demands of the air-transport sector for the next decades.
The objectives of the GRAIN2 proposal fit with the guidelines and recommendations proposed in the ACARE Flight Path 2050 Vision for the Aircraft report. The response to issues of public interest is a key element of the 2050 Vision Agenda including multidisciplinary problems such as noise reduction, emission reduction and safer air transport and affordability.
In summary, the joint activities of the GRAIN2 project will be of value for helping to achieve the goals of the research agenda in the European aeronautics sector in the next four decades. As clearly specified in the Flight Path 2050 Vision for Aircraft report only ?a deeper and trans disciplinary greener research approach can provide the basis for protecting the environment and ensuring European leadership in the global aerospace green market by 2050?. Helping to build this integrated research scenario through a better cooperation between European and Chinese organizations in finding greener solutions to environmental challenges in aeronautics is one of the main goals of the GRAIN2 proposal.
The successful development of the GRAIN2project will open new opportunities for creating employment in a number of strategic emission reduction oriented lines. Thus, by having access to state of the art computational methods and software for a better greening of aircraft design and production of aeronautic vehicles in a multidisciplinary environment, the need for skilled engineers will increase the demands for jobs. Similarly, new training and education programs will have to be implemented for developing the skills of practising and newly graduated aerospace engineers into the development of new methods for multidisciplinary design of greener air vehicles and greener aero engines, the greening of operational environment in Airport transport system and new ATM concepts, and the production of alternative fuels. This will also contribute to the preservation and creation of employment in Europe.
The interaction in Key Greener Technologies groups (KGTs) between partners from different organizations in Europe and China (aeronautics/aerospace industries, RTD centres, universities and international associations) will lead to an exchange of technical and regulation ideas built on greener knowledge sharing with different sectors and personnel which will help towards making more attractive the work in these fields.
The GRAIN2 data will also find application in markets different from the aeronautic sectors that also need the computational multi physics transport technologies and the development of greener new materials (i.e. turbo machinery, civil construction, naval architecture, automotive industrial forming processes, etc.). Dissemination and Transfer of prospects of the GRAIN2greener multi-physics technology to these sectors through adequate disseminating actions (i.e. lecture series, road maps, workshops, conferences, publications, etc.) will help to create new attractive cooperative RTD scenarios and future business opportunities for cooperation between different sectors and this will also contribute to the creation of new jobs.
Finally, GRAIN2 project will look for synergies with other on-going FP7 Euro-Asia networks and will also leverage future HORIZON 2020 projects.
Environment
The Flight Path 2050 Vision for aircraft report aims to make European Aeronautics a global leader in the world market with safer, less noisy and less polluting air vehicles. The GRAIN2CSAactivities and outputs will contribute towards achieving these goals by preserving the environment in a number of ways. First, one of the main goals is the improvement on the methods which enable the reduction of emissions. In addition, a better aerodynamic and acoustic design of aircraft, with the use of cutting-edge bio and smart materials which will reduce the total weight of the aircraft will also be beneficial for reducing the emission of external and internal noise. The development of emission (90% in NOx) and noise (65% in dB) reduction techniques is one of the goals of the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda. In addition to the improvements in greening the aircraft and engine design simultaneously, including new materials and biofuels, new concepts in CNS/ATM will also provide a greener air transport.
Likewise, a better understanding of flow turbulence and turbulence/environmentally friendly chemical modelling interactions will contribute to a reduction of fuel consumption and pollution emissions. In addition, a better design of aircraft and structures (obtained by accounting for all the couplings and interactions of the participating physical phenomena) will ensure a longer durability of components and integrated aircraft vehicles. Finally the introduction of uncertainties in analysis and design software will contribute to reduce significantly margins which warranty the maintenance of green performances and stability within real operations of aircraft. This will invariably contribute to extending the life cycle, thus, reducing the environmental impact of maintenance and replacement.
Quality of life, health and safety of the citizens
The objectives of the GRAIN2 proposal respond to a number of societal needs. Indeed, the design of safer, cleaner and quieter aircraft has a direct impact on the quality of life and safety of citizens.
The already identified or necessary in the future GRAIN2multidisciplinary green data will be an essential contribution for developing new methods for the understanding under greener constraints of flow/turbulence and chemistry interactions, the better design of aircraft structures reducing noise emission, fuel consumption and fuel emissions for extending the life of aircraft vehicles. All these aspects will have a very positive impact on the quality of life and health of citizens.
Indeed the design and production of aircraft structures with better endurance limits will contribute to reduce the technological risks involved in aircraft construction and operation. This will also have a very positive effect in the overall safety of aircraft and, hence, on the safety of citizens.
GRAIN2 will confirm the greener oriented expectations of proposers from new identified collaborative methods and tools for the design new civil and business aircraft in terms of performances, environmental problems and safety to issue a roadmap leading to a significant improvement (30% or more) over the existing range.