In a context of significant growth of air traffic, aircraft manufacturers face new economic and environmental challenges. LAWITECS project, bringing together manufacturers such as SONACA, ESIX, MICROMEGA DYNAMICS, LASEA and IONICS, proposes to develop Natural Laminar Flow technology applied to the wing leading edges in order to reduce fuel consumption of a medium-haul type A320 aircraft between 5 and 12% by 2025.
This NLF technology requires reviewing the current wing profile and developing new geometric and structural concepts of structural parts to ensure a precise shape in flight. To achieve the very high surface quality required by this technology, new coatings will also be developed.
In the same time, numerical and experimental tools will be developed by research and academic partners of the project to understand the sensitivity of airflow to surface defects and to quantify the degradation of properties generated by the environment.
IONICS is involved in the technical and economical study of the choosen coatings. In a second time, the company will help Materia Nova to upscale the PVD coating solution to carry out the final demonstrator.
The project started in September 2019 for a 48-month period of time.
If you need more information, please contact Aida NASIRI : info@ionics-group.com.
SONACA, ESIX, MICROMEGA DYNAMICS, LASEA, MATERIA NOVA, VKI, CENAERO and IONICS
The project is co-financed by the Walloon Research Administration, DGO6.
