Aviation Civile

8 SuSTAINAbLE DEVELoPMENT
9
performance Launched just after the Grenelle Forum for the environment,
the CORAC aims to optimise the efforts of the air transport sector in
the field of research and innovation. It enters in an operational phase based
on an ambitious technological demonstration programme.
The CORAC is designing
tomorrow’s
green aircraft
set up in July 2008, and with a strength of seventeen
partners, the French strategic council for
civil aeronautics research—the CORAC—has
now reached its cruising speed. In the spring
of 2009 the CORAC presented its technological
roadmap for achieving its extremely ambitious
objectives: reducing CO 2 emissions by half, reducing
emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 80% and halving
the level of perceived noise, all by 2020.
This roadmap opened the way, in 2010, to the
operational initiation of a technological demonstration
plan. Accordingly, seven demonstrators are to
establish the technological maturity of the solutions
selected for the aircraft that will come into service
between 2020 and 2025. The demonstrators proposed
in 2010 include:
– a modular avionics project to reduce consumption by means of trajectory optimisation,
CLoSe uP oN…
A SMARTER AND CHEAPER AIRCRAFT
To summarise,
the aircraft that is going
to be taking off in fifteen
years time should be
more efficient, lighter,
more intelligent
and more electrical.
Performance, explains
Fabrice brégier, director
general at Airbus,
will be improved
especially by ”changes
toward open-rotors,
which are engines
with rapid propellers
making possible
a reduction of 10 to
15% in consumption,
and so in CO 2 emissions”.
This aircraft will also
be lighter, consuming
less fuel, thanks
to the increased use
of composite materials.
This has already been
started with the new
A350. The aircraft
of the future will also
have a “higher
intelligence” that will
mean more fluid traffic.
This assumes,
emphasises Fabrice
brégier “a better control
over aircraft trajectories
in four dimensions
and also advances
toward the cockpit of
the future”. We are also
expecting the “electricity
fairy” to make this
aircraft very ecological,
gradually replacing
hydraulic and pneumatic
energies.
“All these technologies
should be ready by 2025.
They will bring about
a 20 to 25% reduction
in consumption
compared to the A320,”
predicts Fabrice brégier.
– a project on the optimised management of onboard
energy,
– a project to develop electrical landing gear,
– a project devoted to the cockpits of the future.
Composite materials
Two other demonstrators are currently well
advanced. Firstly, the project aiming to extend the
use of composite materials, supported by Airbus
and Dassault: “We are starting to master this technique.
An aircraft like the A380 already includes a large
percentage of composite materials. While Boeing’s
Dreamliner project and that of the Airbus A350 XWB
demonstrate that these will soon become the majority
part of the aircraft we do now need to face up to ‘real
life’. We need to develop this technology in all of the
stages—from design to operational use—so that it can
fit in with high production rates and be included in the
most widely sold aircraft,” explains Pierre Moschetti,
deputy director of aeronautical construction at the
DTA (air transport directorate).
The demonstrator for an EPICE is also expected
to be one of the first to appear. The design for a new
© CORAC
_Vela (Very Efficient Large Aircraft) flying wing. This European project, lead by Airbus,
is also studying the architecture, aerodynamics and mechanics of future aircraft.
engine and a new generation power plant to succeed
the CFM 56 will reduce CO 2 emissions by 15% as well
as cutting noise levels by at least 5 dB by 2016.
In parallel with the demonstrators, several
research directions have been decided, in 2010, in
order to understand better the interactions of air
transport with climate phenomena. “While it is easy
to evaluate the CO 2 emitted by air transport, the question
of how it affects the climate is more complicated.
We are now only at the beginning of research into this
area,” points out Pascal Luciani, deputy director for
Sustainable Development at the DTA.
The work will concentrate on subjects such as new
fuels, condensation trails and ways to detect zones
that are the most likely to generate these trails so that,
ultimately, they can be included in flight control.
To support the financing of these demonstration
platforms over the next five or six years (with
an estimated cost of around 1 billion euros), the
government is going to make available a budget of
500 million euros, from a large bond issue launched
in 2010—an effort commensurate with the ambition
of these projects to create tomorrow’s green aircraft.
henri Cormier
EPICE
Integrated propulsion
unit in composite
materials for
the environment.
QuESTIoNS To…
PIERRE MOSCHETTI,
DePUTY DIReCTOR OF AeRONAUTICAL
CONSTRUCTION AT THe DTA (AIR TRANSPORT
DIReCTORATe)
what is the level of involvement of the dgAC
in the CorAC?
The DGAC has been, along with the GIFAS 1 , an initiator
of the CORAC approach at the ministry for sustainable
development. It has positioned itself as a major player
in its setting up and has taken on the leading role.
Today, this work to organise and structure the actions
has fallen on me, as an aide to the chairman of
the steering committee of the CORAC, Marc Ventre.
do other departments of the dgAC get involved
in CorAC bodies?
As an example, the teams of the DSNA 2 are working
with scientists, aircraft builders, airlines and airports
on key questions such as low-noise approach and
take-off trajectories or interactions between aviation
and atmospheric phenomena.
Representatives of the DSNA are also very active in
maintaining the CORAC roadmap, given their knowledge
of the SESAR 3 project (read p. 10). Finally, the deputy
directorate team for Sustainable Development, lead
by Pascal Luciani, is obviously among the first to be
interested in the work being done by the CORAC.
what does this work need in particular?
A great deal of effort is needed in demonstration and
in focusing on certain sticking points, and this means
coordinating the work of the players in their particular
fields of expertise. But it is just as important to work
at the interfaces between what everyone is doing,
as it is there that the greatest progress can be made.
1/ French aeronautic and space industries group.
2/ Air navigation services directorate.
3/ Single European Sky ATM Research.
Aviation Civile magazine No.358_ June 2011 Aviation Civile magazine No.358_ June 2011
© Airbus
© MEEDDM/B. Suard