Project description
A smart valve knows when to let inert gases into the fuel tank to prevent explosion
The aerospace sector is going green, with numerous research projects focused on reducing weight, fuel consumption and emissions and eliminating toxic chemicals. Conventionally, halogenated hydrocarbons (halons) have been the main agents used in aircraft fire extinguishers. These toxic chemicals are harmful to the ozone layer and are being phased out. They will be replaced by on-board inert gas generation systems that produce inert gases to prevent the formation of explosive mixtures in the fuel tank. The EU-funded VISTAC project is addressing the need for a smart multi-position valve to control flows. Design requirements include low cost, low weight and reliability for intelligent fire extinguishing with a low carbon footprint.
Objective
Valve for Inerting Sytem with Termal ACtuator.
The present proposal, called VISTAC, offers cooperation between GDTech, highll skilled company in the field of simulation of thermal, fluid and muliphysics behavior of aeronautical equipment and Equip’Aero TECHNIQUE, recognized design and production organization for aircraft fluid management equipment including innovative solutions. This strong partnership combines expertise in all required fields and experienced practice in working-in and managing research projects. These elements are a guarantee of VISTAC success.
A low weight, low cost, high reliability and maintenability optimized multiposition valve will be developped for the needs of future generation of halon free fire extinguishing systems using a common On Board Inert Gas Generation (OBIGGS) with the fuel tank inerting system.
State of the art knowledge of the partners in valves technologies will be associated with the development of a new generation of electromechanical actuator using thermal effects. Heat generated by electrical signal is converted into mechanical force and stroke by the mean of Shape Memory Alloys elements or thermostatic wax elements developped in the ATHT project already ongoing in Equip’Aero Technique R&T department.
Valve developed will be maturated to TRL6 and will be ready for manufacturing to MRL6.
Topic leader and partners may then be able to propose to further certification an optimized fire exitinguishing system with reduced environmental fooprint incorporating a smart multiposition valve.
EU industrials and environment shall greatly benefit from this study, thanks to a strong dissemination plan and a wide communication strategy.
Fields of science
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
32600 L Isle-Jourdain
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.