Defacto project: composites to reduce aircraft costs and weight

The Descartes project, which was launched in 2018 and ended this year, has led to the development of innovative technologies for the design of thermoplastic composite fuselage frames for the aerospace industry. These frames had to be both economical and suitable for high-speed production in order to meet the needs of future single-aisle aircraft. As part of the project, two demonstrators were manufactured using two different technologies: firstly, TFP (Tailored Fibre Placement) to produce the demonstrator preform from a carbon/PAEK co-filament, which was then consolidated by thermocompression – this demonstrator should enable the production of parts with highly complex geometries, in line with Airbus’s requirements; in addition, a TP curved pultrusion demonstrator has been developed. The Descartes project also highlighted tooling technologies that enable thermal homogeneity control and cycle time reduction, as well as thermomechanical modelling methodologies that identify possible distortions and thus anticipate tooling design. The Defacto project is part of this approach.

Validating technologies for creating complex, heavily loaded parts

The aim of the Defacto project is to remove the obstacles preventing the full adoption of composites in the manufacture of future single-aisle aircraft. Currently, certain structural parts of this type of aircraft, with complex geometries, are heavily loaded and are therefore manufactured in titanium or aluminium, involving multi-material assemblies. Manufacturing these parts in composite materials would reduce costs, reduce aircraft weight and limit dependence on titanium.

The Defacto project aims to study the design and manufacture of aeronautical structural fittings in thermoplastic composites. It is organised around two applications, relating to the fuselage and engine environments.

The mechanical preforming process followed by press consolidation, developed as part of the Descartes project for the manufacture of complex geometric parts, will be refined through iterations focusing on a series of singularities. The production of full-scale demonstration parts will enable the technology to be validated.

The design of suitable tools to obtain parts of optimal quality will also be on the agenda thanks to the improvement of predictive models of thermal and mechanical phenomena during the entire cycle.