EADS - Centrale Nantes Chair

Training and research objectives

In 2008, the EADS - Centrale Nantes Chair was tasked with developing and structuring initial and continuous training at national, European and international level; and with setting up research projects in the advanced modelling and numerical simulation of manufacturing processes for composite structures for the aeronautics and space industry. The chair was also designed to make a contribution towards addressing the many technological challenges of these sectors. It was allocated a budget of one million euros for a four year period.
 

Unexpected scientific results

Two years on, all scientific objectives have been exceeded. The scientific results obtained go above and beyond academic expectations. Simulation limits have been very significantly extended. These achievements conferred the EADS - Centrale Nantes Chair with national, European and international visibility.

The main challenge for the chair related to the simulation of realistic models associated with structures of industrial interest. Some digital models have never been solved despite ever more powerful computers. The challenge is to ensure a reasonable calculation time and to use only small computing platforms or even simple smartphones!
Efficiency requires the use of model reduction techniques based on the use of P.G.D. - Proper Generalized Decomposition - the brainchild of P. Ladeveze, ENS Cachan, on the one hand, and of F. Chinesta and A. Nouy, ​​GeM, Centrale Nantes on the other. These techniques have made it possible to reduce computing times by several orders of magnitude and  even to solve certain as yet unsolved models.

Real-time simulations and even optimization, control, reverse identification, monitoring and reconfiguration of faulty systems will be possible in real time using low power computing platforms such as smartphones.

This speed of calculation makes it possible to combine off-line calculations and small on-line calculations. The "offline-on-line" PGD solution, called iPGD for its use on smartphones allows active simulations, ie to introduce into the simulation data that comes from the experimental measurements.

These results make it possible today to envisage applications, not only of virtual reality but also of augmented reality in the industrial practice around the processes of composite implementation.
 

Training outcomes

• Scholarship awarded to a student of the Erasmus-Mundus master "Computational Mechanics"
• Creation of the advanced master " Expert in composite materials engineering and production methods", accredited by the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles in 2009.
• Participation in PhD training courses.
• The first training course on Thermoplastic Composites was organized at the EMC2 Technocampus in March 2010

 

Outstanding involvement in the organization of congresses, conferences, workshops

The EADS Foundation Centrale Nantes Chair at the centre of 5 international workshops
Francisco Chinesta, professor, holder of the Chair,  member of scientific or organization committees for 54 congresses.
 

Creation of a CNRS research group

The research group project "Implementation of composites and induced properties" brings together all the teams active in the modeling of composite implementation processes in France. It involves more than 120 researchers in 20 laboratories and fifteen leading non-university companies or research centers: Airbus, Arkema, Beneteau, CETIM, Daher, Dassault, EADS, Eurocopter, GIP Technocampus , Hexel, Onera, Rhodia, Snecma and Tensyl.
 

The ANR-COSINUS SIMDREAM

The collaboration with Pierre Ladeveze - ENS Cachan - based on advanced simulation strategies opened the door for this project. This is the new paradigm in numerical simulation: decomposition into separate variables for the model reduction. This project carried out by Francisco Chinesta is financed to the tune of € 630,000 over 36 months.

• 11 books or chapters in books
• 1 publication on composite materials, addressed to the general public, in March 2011
• 53 articles in international newspapers
• 1 article laureate, in 2010, of the prize for the best article published in the "Journal of Nanoengineering and Nanosciences"
• One hundred conference papers
• 30 seminars in different universities in France and abroad
• 20 plenary lectures at national and international congresses
• Francisco Chinesta, Holder of the Chair is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal "International Journal of Material Forming", edited by Springer.