EASN Newsletter - January 2023

The 12th EASN International Conference on Innovation in Aviation & Space was successfully held in Barcelona - Spain, from October 18^th to October 21^st, 2022. It was the first EASN in-person gathering after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in March 2020.

The EASN Association and the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya – Barcelona Tech (UPC) would like to cordially thank all the participants of the 12th EASN International Conference. Many thanks are also due to the Keynote Speakers, Session Chairs, Authors and Presenters, the International Scientific Committee and the local Organizing Committee for making this Conference a big success.

The event included 8 Keynote Speeches, more than 400 technical presentations and feedback slots distributed in 75 sessions and workshops. Moreover, 85 Aviation & Space Projects disseminated their latest research results as well as the future trends in the respective technological fields. In total, more than 470 participants from 39 countries joined the 12th EASN International Conference, making this year’s gathering the most successful in the EASN Conference series so far.

As its predecessors, the conference has proved to be a major European Dissemination event for research in Aviation & Space, providing a forum for EU funded project’s activities, where innovative ideas, breakthrough concepts, and disruptive technologies are presented and discussed with the aim to establish new research partnerships and possible synergies. In addition, a number of European policy development projects also found the floor to present future strategic priorities.

During the three days gathering, highlights of the conference have represented the Keynote Speeches, which were given by distinguished personalities of the European Aviation & Space sector to update the delegates on the future Industrial trends and the European priorities with respect to the medium and long-term goals. More specifically: 

• Mr. Christophe Bonnal, Senior expert of the CNES Directorate of Strategy and Chairman of the EUCASS Board, presented the topic "Space Debris in a nut shell - Long Term Sustainability of Space Operations".
• Dr.-Ing. Gisela Detrell, Research Team Leader in the Institute of Space Systems of the University of Stuttgart (Germany), gave the speech entitled: “Surviving on Mars”.
• Mr. Pablo Perez – Illana, Deputy Head of Horizon Europe Transport unit, CINEA “Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency” of the European Commission, made a presentation about “From inception to implementation of EU Aviation: Research, Innovation and Deployment with CINEA”.
• Mr. Axel Krein, Executive Director of the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking, shared his viewpoint about “Disruptive technologies: the path to take European aviation to climate neutrality”.
• Dr. Isabelle Lacaze, Head of Technological Demonstrator at the Airbus UpNext, gave a keynote speech on "Anticipating Disruption: Protecting Businesses Through Innovation".
• Mr. Daniel Marco Pàrraga, Director General of Innovation and Digital Economy in the Government of Catalonia, spoke about the “Catalonia is going into orbit with the NewSpace Strategy”.
• Mr. Juan Francisco Reyes Sanchez, CDTI-E.P.E Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the National Contact Point for Aviation, Horizon Europe, presented the “European Union transnational R&i aviation funding and the Spanish support”.
• Prof. Dr. Dieter Schmitt, Chairman of the EASN Stakeholders Advisory Board and Independent consultant for aeronautics, gave a fruitful lecture entitled: Quō vādis Aeronautics?

Furthermore, a significant highlight of the conference were the workshops which addressed the edged technological topics of:

• Clean Sky 2: Thematic topics & Technology Evaluator workshop on Aircraft Concepts, chaired by Dr. Jean-François Brouckaert, Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking
• ecoDESIGN and Sustainable Productivity, chaired by Dipl.-Ing. Torsten Moll, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Germany
• Urban Air Mobility
  Part I: Scaled Demonstrators, chaired by Dr.-Ing. Christian Eschmann, DLR, Germany
  Part II: Future Energy Sources for Aviation, chaired by Mr. Marcello Kivel Mazuy, CIRA, Italy
  Part III: Circular Aviation System, chaired by Mrs. Ligeia Paletti, NLR, the Netherlands

Yet, it would be an omission to do not underline the significance and quality and of the presentations made in the frame of the sessions of the conference. They have provided the solid base for the success of the conference.

The fourth day of the Conference was dedicated to technical visits throughout which the participants had the opportunity to explore some innovative and advanced technological destinations of Barcelona’s research ecosystem, such as the BSC-CNS Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (IRI).

The Proceedings of the 12th EASN International Conference will be published by IOP Publishing Ltd in the respective open-access volume of the "12th EASN International Conference on Innovation in Aviation & Space for opening New Horizons" by the Journal of Physics: Conference Series. Proceedings are an important part of the scientific record, documenting and preserving work presented at the EASN Conferences throughout the years.
Further to the proceedings, selected full papers will be published in two international journals, following peer review : Aerospace - Open Access Journal and Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology (AEAT).

Finally, in an effort to maintain the high-quality content and services of the EASN conference, an evaluation questionnaire was circulated among the participants to ensure that the conference continues to meet their expectations. The conference was highly rated by the the vast majority of the participants. 

The evaluation results in detail can be found here.

European citizens, energy consuming industry and SMEs, are facing the crippling consequences of the energy crisis. The increase of cost of living and the significant fluctuations of the energy prices are becoming a daily companion of our lives, placing an uncertainty never experienced before on the entire European industrial and social ecosystem.

The research and innovation community is facing the same problems, which is why EREA and EASN wish to engage a constructive dialogue with the European Commission and its Agencies, to find a viable way to make RTD&I projects resilient to external threats like energy price fluctuations, material scarcity and material prices.

The EREA and EASN joint letter can be found here.

Prof. Giorgio Guglieri is Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) at Polytechnic of Torino and Member of the Clean Aviation JU Academic Members Forum.

Q1: Among the possible reasons: overconfidence of companies with respect to objectives of European research agendas … CAJu funding seen by companies as a private playground … contribution of universities seen as minor or less relevant than in CS2 in terms of TRL increase of target demonstrators and prototypes … lack of vision from CAJU governance as co-financing capabalities are over-driving the focus of project consortia weakening the role of academia as a driver of innovation.

Q2: Lack of innovation deriving from academic contributors … projects seen as development or POC of already existing principles and concepts … universities seen as necessary presence for compliance with CAJU rules … to be kept at minimum … disappearance of academic partners from major CAJU projects unless providing some kind of outsourcing activities (that is not the purpose of academic research).

Q3: Strong action towards GB and CAJU governance … a delegation should meet CAJU management and/or enforcing a strong common document/letter addressing a change in the CAJU call procedures (a new role for academia as the result of realignment of targets).

Mr. Volker Krajenski is in German Aerospace Center (DLR). He is participating in the present survey in his capacity as Member of EASN’s Stakeholders Advisory Board.

Q1: The funding mechanism drastically changed from CLEAN SKY 2 to CLEAN AVIATION. In CLEAN SKY 2 there was a dedicated funding of 40 % for the industrial leaders, while 60 % of the funding was distributed via Core Partner Calls and Calls for Proposals. Within these 60 % of funding universities had the chance to place their own proposals and get their share of the CLEAN SKY 2 funding. In CLEAN AVIATION this differentiation in funding between the industrial leaders and the other participants is no longer existing: There is one single call for proposals where in most cases the consortium has to be lead by industry. This leads to the situation that industry is now deciding on the consortia and academia has no chance to come up with own proposals. Furthermore, CLEAN AVIATION is dedicated to deliver “short term impact” which is not in the focus of academia. Thus, universities may not be the preferred partners for the CLEAN AVIATION projects lead by industry.

Q2: A successful European “Aviation Research Eco-system” composed of industry, SMEs, RTOs and academia was established during the years by instruments like the Integrated Projects in FP6, the Level 2 projects in FP7 and CLEAN SKY 2 in Horizon 2020. This Eco-system is key to enable the aviation sector in Europe to be successful on a mid and long term perspective. With the new funding mechanism in CLEAN AVIATION and the lack of Level 2 projects in the collaborative research there is the strong risk to lose this Eco-system: CLEAN AVIATION is focusing on industry while the collaborative research with its limited funding is looking for smaller projects. This set-up will not be able to bring together all of the 4 stakeholder groups in an efficient way.

Q3: Of course there is the need to take measures! To ensure a feasible participation of academia and keep the “Aviation Research Eco-system” alive:

• either CLEAN AVIATION has to open its funding for research activities besides the impact driven research dominated by industry, as done with the “Thematic Topics” in CLEAN SKY 2
• or the collaborative research on aviation in Cluster 5 has to be significantly increased to cover the gap between CLEAN AVIATION and the current collaborative research.

Assoc. Prof. Jonas Kristiansen Nøland is Coordinator of NTNU's Clean Aviation Research Initiative and Member of the Clean Aviation JU Academic Members Forum.

Q1: I think a transition has happened. It does not seem to be the competencies of potential Universities that are driving the decisions to not include them, but rather the lack of the correct laboratory infrastructures for the specific projects. Universities that have lab set-up that can help the projects are easy to sell for projects since then they do not have to order expensive test set-ups themselves. My impression is that the academic or theoretical competencies are not much appreciated as buy-in to a CA project.

Q2: I think the projects get more incremental with less participation from the Universities. There is also a weaker coupling between higher TRL developments and basic research with lower TRL developments.

Q3: I think it should be more incentive to include some part of academia in all of the activities of the CA projects, even though they do not have to be the major contributors. As it is now, academia is participating in some activities and completely gone from other activities. It should be stronger links between the activities in the projects. Now it seems like there are activity streams where academia is not involved and some streams where academia is involved with weak connections to the core activities.

Dr. Marco Protti is Vice President of Advanced Research in Leonardo Aircraft Division, Vice-Chairman of the Clean Sky JU Governing Board and ACARE Interim Co-Chair.

Q1: There are three basic and interconnecting factors:

a) EC decision that Clean Aviation shall target impact on mobility and emission in Europe by 2035 focusing on the two aircraft segments (SMR and regional) that together cover more than 95% of global EU aviation impact. The quite short time for implementation -given aviation timeline- and the large size of reference aircraft cause that only big industrial organizations able to manage technical integration complexity and certification/qualification as well as owners of big testing facilities are involved to quickly mature and test the new technologies at right scale. This decision puts aside the other segments where the academia participation is traditionally larger:

- those relevant OEMs, normally smaller, often require specific expertise in frontier technical areas to academia to support the development;
- those segments -including rotorcraft- are often for various reasons “simpler” or initial test beds for disruptive technology maturation. Again, academia is largely involved in the development of those test bed and execution.

In summary, such EC decision moves up the TRL, complexity and size of required effort beyond the “average” academia can offer. Several examples can be derived from CA Call 1 proposals supporting this analysis

b) EC decision on the JU partnership working framework. The JU framework asks for:

b.1) One call per year. Despite the disruptiveness of technologies may require a specific know-how to fix or better investigate a peculiar aspect discovered during the research, the partnership cannot be modified. Therefore, partners shall owe the capability to manage any kind of result and case. This ability is only owned by large industrial organizations or a few very large academia. But this decision has two consequences:

- It freezes the partnership at what decided at proposal set up and does not allow to adjust it to the novelties and needs as it was for CfPs actions in CS1 and CS2.
- It causes proposals are on average quite large to include all options and features. They cannot have a quick fix in case but wait another call.

b.2) Independent projects. Both MS and EC supported JU topics shall look for best “un-clustered” ideas that concur to the global JU scope on the basis of a common and shared planning and basic requirements. This approach works well if the partnership results will be actually integrated in a further opportunity beyond it (for instance Hydrogen Valley and SESAR implementation). On the contrary, Clean Aviation shall deliver unique flight demonstrators actually integrating the results of relevant “linked” projects in “form, fit and function”. This is a very relevant scope well beyond the former “qualitative” coordination. To deliver results compliant for “form, fit and function”, projects shall have a robust technical guidance and management close to real industrial projects and partners used to that (see also point above). Then, to reduce risks, academia is not the primary choice of proposal leaders.

b.3) Priority only to technical areas directly contributing to Clean Aviation GHG targets and demonstrators. Integration of Clean Aviation disruptive technologies on a real aircraft requires to consider both those contributing to reduce GHG and those making possible the former ones work well in the aircraft even if they are not directly carrying in a GHG reduction. The latter are a wide and broad set of technologies including digitalization at broad (simulation, analytical tools for design and project assessment, models), structural components, integration techniques, manufacturing processes, major component layout and shape. Those are normally the elective contribution of academia able to provide a specific solution to a specific challenge. Also in this case.

c) The poor connection between Clean Aviation and Collaborative Research in Cluster 5 and beyond. Today the envisaged crossed fertilization between Clean Aviation and Collaborative Researches is not achieved being different TRL, timing, scopes and working frames even if the topics might be similar in terms of high level concepts and key words. Collaborative Research are the elective area for academia and they could bring a relevant added value to Clean Aviation if a coordination is implemented reciprocally providing to academia a full visibility of Clean Aviation challenges.

Q2: The limited support of the best scientific expertise available in Europe from academia in critical issues that may appear during Clean Aviation execution (see point b above). Some areas complementary yet essential to Clean Aviation technologies for low GHG may be not pursued at all (see point b.iii above) with adequate skill and resources. The limited cross-fertilization between Clean Aviation and the other opportunities where academia normally participates. Clean Aviation may not be aware of good ideas yet available or not having available the best resources dedicated to solving an emerging problem not envisaged during proposal set-up.

Q3: Yes. Two are the key measures possible within existing Horizon Europe rules and frame:

- To promote a close cooperation between Clean Aviation and Collaborative Research implementing both a legal working frame to enact synergies and to define topics complementary each other on GHG themes and on technical areas besides GHG but still very essential for a sustainable aircraft. The original approach of Clean Aviation SRIA should be resumed.

- To introduce in Clean Aviation a mechanism for flexibility of partnership during execution allowing the proposals to improve their partnership and skills depending on actual needs from the on-going results.

Mr. Pawel Stezycki is General Director of the Łukasiewicz-Institute of Aviation, EREA Chair, Member of ASD, IFAR and ACARE Board.

Q1: Actually in my opinion there are a few:

a) Industry is very much results oriented and want to control the IP development and distribution

b) Academia is not ready to work fast according to the industry business needs

c) Academia does not receive enough support on country level for many years, thus point #b above is valid and the problem will grow year after year.

Q2: Students may not be well prepared to take the industrial job after they graduate from Academia.

Q3: There is no simple answer. In my opinion academia should be more focused on education rather than project execution. This is an international trend that big companies found and develop their own R&D centers. Some collaboration is needed of course to ensure students are not just theoretically prepared. Governments should creat a long-term plan for how to finance Academia to ensure proper equipment and talented professors and PhDs development.

Large civil passenger aircraft wings are highly flexible structures that house the fuel tanks but can deform significantly when atmospheric turbulence or gust is encountered.

The EU-funded Horizon 2020 SLOWD (SLOshing Wing Dynamics) project aims to investigate in-depth the effect of sloshing on the dynamics of the wing structures carrying fuel through the development of experimental, numerical, and analytical methods; and eventually to take advantage of the dissipative effect of sloshing to reduce loads from gusts and turbulence.

From 17 to 19 October 2022, the SLOWD Consortium successfully conducted its M36 online progress meeting. This gathering was an excellent opportunity for the members to present their latest scientific and technical achievements, exchange information on overall progress, and agree on the next steps. 

To date, one of the project's main achievements is a Special Issue publication devoted to the SLOWD project in the scientific journal Applied Sciences. This special issue is entitled "Liquid Slosh Damping: Experimental and Numerical Developments," and its primary goal is to highlight the recent developments, advances, and new frontiers in the framework of liquid-slosh-induced energy dissipation resulting from the SLOWD project. 

It is also worth mentioning that the Editorial Board of Physics of Fluids selected the scientific peer-reviewed paper under the title "Energy dissipation in violent three-dimensional sloshing flows induced by high-frequency vertical accelerations” to advertise it in the weekly magazine "Scilight". Scilight gives prominence to the most exciting research across the physical sciences published in AIP Publishing Journals. The Scilight article, with the title "Modeling sloshing fuel tanks to provide oscillatory damping for airplane wings" was communicated to a broad scientific audience showcasing what is new and essential in the latest research in this field.

Get in touch via our online communities on SLOWD official website, LinkedIn, Twitter , YouTube, ZENODO, ResearchGate

The DOMMINIO project – "Digital method for imprOved Manufacturing of next-generation MultIfuNctIOnal airframe parts" was launched on January 20, 2021, aiming to develop a methodology to ensure cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable manufacturing of high-quality multifunctional and intelligent airframe parts, based on: Robotized technologies (ATL, FFF), Advanced simulation tools, Online process & quality monitoring, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) methods enabled by real-time data-driven fault detection.

DOMMINIO consortium co-organized the 2nd DOMMINIO Workshop, which took place in the frame of the 12th EASN International Conference on "Innovation in Aviation & Space for opening New Horizons, on Tuesday, October 18, 2022, in Barcelona, Spain. Beyond DOMMINIOs' significant achievements in modeling, simulation, and multifunctional aerostructures, participants representing industrial and academic stakeholders presented the latest thermoplastics, additive manufacturing, and digital manufacturing advances.

The scientific audience knows that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a moving image can accomplish a complex concept. Thus, DOMMINIOs' researchers explain their work and role in the project through a fascinating video series named "Ask the Researchers". The first video has already been launched, and the researcher Claudia Salvan from IPC (Centre Technique Industriel de la Plasturgie et des Composites) gives insights on how 3D printing can meet the requirements for aerospace applications.  More videos with the DOMMINIO experts will follow!

Lastly, our project partner, IMDEA, hosted a reporter from the RTVE Play program Zoom Net and, through a beautiful and inspiring video, gives a glimpse into the IMDEA Materials’ role in the DOMMINIO project. The video also captures the whole incredible journey of the project and its team of researchers toward the digital method for improved manufacturing of next-generation multifunctional airframe parts.

Discover more details on the project and its initiatives via our online communities on DOMMINIO official website, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.