Clean Sky 2, funded by the European Union, aims to develop cleaner air transport technologies in the shortest time frame possible. The INN-PAEK project, part of Clean Sky 2, hopes to offer more sustainable and environmentally friendly production systems to be implemented across the aviation industry with an objective of reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. A team from the Aitiip Technology Center, working on the INN-PAEK project, successfully developed a 100% recyclable turbine demonstrator for airline cooling systems.
Turbines have traditionally been manufactured of welded metallic materials. The Aitiip team developed injection technology for thermoplastic materials making the manufacturing of the turbine possible with sustainable materials in one shot, saving time, energy, and costs. The thermoplastic material is light and versatile, and Aitiip’s process allows adaptation to the complex geometry of these parts that can be recycled at the end of life to create new parts, meeting the goals of the Clean Sky 2 plan.
Company representatives said of the new injection molding technology, “We can say that the impact project is a story of success. Thanks to the demonstrators developed within the project we have validated new applications of 3D printing for strategic sectors such as aviation to allow new kinds of machines to be manufactured with new materials – in this case with a large amount of carbon fiber. The impact project has helped us to go through injection molding to overcome different challenges during these three years to overcome and propose new solutions to the technology. It will help us a lot in the future to help our clients in their issues and to develop new geometries and new strategies for injection molding.”
