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design, the electronics could become
part of the structure of the plane, significantly
reducing the system’s weight
and volume.
SENER is researching the use of carbon
nanotubes in a flexible composite
that could enable an aircraft’s wings to
literally change shape during flight. “It’s
a totally new technology,” says Quintana.
“Right now, any change in wings, such as
landing flaps that are extended in order
to increase the wing surface, is done by
moving rigid surfaces. The idea will be
for the shape of the wing to change without
moving parts.”
Despite its maturity as a composite,
carbon fiber remains a relatively young
addition to aviation. “The industry’s
experience with composites has not been
that long—only about 15 years, which
for the aeronautic industry is a short
period of time,” says Quintana. The
products have certainly been tested for
safety, but Quintana says the industry
still is eyeing the materials’ performance
over the next decade.
Testing
To help the aerospace industry speed up
both innovation and the necessary testing,
major companies in the Basque
region of northern Spain, with local government
assistance, developed the Aeronautics
Technologies Center (known by
its Spanish initials, CTA) in 1998. The
center focuses both on developing new
technologies and on testing products
and designs.
One of the products CTA has developed
is a method of using infrared sensors
to discover cracks and other defects in
both metal and composite parts. Aernnova,
one of the companies behind the founding
of CTA, is already successfully using this
new technology.
Another advance in testing is one of
the most significant services CTA provides.
There are already four facilities
that deal with fire, structures, fluid
dynamics, and acoustics. A facility now
under construction will employ highly
accelerated life testing, a cutting-edge
technology that can save companies
about 20 percent of the time used in
typical product testing—time savings
that can, over the development of a
product, lead to significant cost savings.
These new tests involve exceeding a
system’s vibration, temperature, and
load limits at the same time. The effects
mimic the stresses of long-term product
life span and can highlight weaknesses,
allowing manufacturers to correct those
S4 www.technologyreview.com/spain/aero
photo courtesy of aernnova
Spanish companies assemble parts for a
variety of airplanes: here, workers assemble
wings for an Embraer plane.
www.technologyreview.com/spain/aero S5
weaknesses before the products are on
the market. CTA is the only lab in
Europe performing these tests on electromechanical
components, and one of
only a handful of labs in the world with
these facilities.
CTA is one example of the focus on
research and development in the Basque
area, in northern Spain. In large part this
movement toward R&D came about as the
region shifted away from a primarily manufacturing
base.
“The industrial crisis of the ’70s and
’80s exploded in the north of Spain,”
says Juan P. Vela, general manager of
CTA. “It affected the steel and shipbuilding
industries, as they faced rising costs
and increasing competition from the Far
East.” With the assistance of the local
government, the companies of the
Basque region defined the aeronautics
industry as one of the area’s new industrial
goals after analyzing the viability of
a number of alternatives. In only 15
years, the region’s investment, employment,
and production in the aerospace
industry skyrocketed.
“In 1990, we had virtually zero sales
in the aerospace industry,” says José
Juez, director of HEGAN, the Basque
aerospace industry association. “Today
we have 6,000 individuals employed in
that sector. We have almost 20 percent
investment in R&D over sales, which is
particularly high. All this growth came
about because the companies in the
region, such as Aernnova, ITP, SENER,
and more than 40 smaller companies,
know the sector and understand the
importance of investment in research to
generate our own technology and the
importance of collaborating with other
companies and institutions.”
In the southern region of Andalusia,
where Airbus and EADS-CASA have
major production centers, local government
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