CARBON emissions from air travel could be reduced thanks to a new collaboration between engineers from the Universities of Bath and Bristol and the aerospace industry. The £1.4million project will investigate new ways of using composite materials for wing panels in aircraft. The research will be using carbon fibres that are curved within flat plates to produce damage-tolerant, buckle-free structures.
This is expected to lead to substantial cost and weight savings of 10-30% on structural components, saving fuel and reducing CO2 emissions from aircraft – and, in turn, helping to reduce the impact on the environment. The Bristol-based team will be leading the development and manufacture of the new carbon-fibre materials and the Bath team will be investigating different designs for the structures of wing panels to test their damage tolerance. Both teams will be using mathematical-modelling techniques to optimise and test their designs.