ECO-COMPASS: Ecological and Multifunctional Composites for Application in Aircraft Interior and Secondary Structures

Dear Colleagues,

Today, mainly man-made materials, such as carbon and glass fibers, are used to produce composite parts in aviation. Renewable materials, such as natural fibers or bio-sourced resin systems, have not yet found their way into aviation. The project ECO-COMPASS aims to evaluate the potential applications of ecologically improved composite materials in the aviation sector in an international collaboration of Chinese and European partners. Natural fibers like flax and ramie will be used for different types of reinforcements and sandwich cores. Furthermore, bio-based epoxy resins to substitute bisphenol-A based epoxy resins in secondary structures are under investigation. Adapted material protection technologies to reduce environmental influence and to improve fire resistance are needed to fulfil the demanding safety requirements in aviation. Modelling and simulation of chosen eco-composites aims for an optimized use of materials while a Life Cycle Assessment aims to prove the ecological advantages compared to synthetic state-of-the-art materials. This Special Issue will provide selected papers from the project consortium partners.

This Special Issue is cooperating with the special session entitled “ECO-COMPASS: Ecological and Multifunctional Composites for Application in Aircraft Interior and Secondary Structures” that was organized at ICCS20 (Paris, France, 4–7 September 2017, https://events.unibo.it/iccs20). It will give the opportunity to present research activities carried out within the project and to disseminate recent results and achievements.

Authors of outstanding papers related to the ECO-COMPASS project are invited to submit their work to this Special Issue for publication.

Prof. Dr. Xiaosu Yi
Prof. Dr. Konstantinos Tserpes
Guest Editors

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