Interview with Tsampas Spyros, GKN Aerospace
One of the speakers at the LIGHTer/Chalmers seminar Pushing the boundaries in Transportation with Composites is Tsampas Spyros from GKN Aerospace. He will speak about "Towards next generation aero engines - harnessing in the 21st century technologies".
It is a giant challenge to meet the global needs of both increase of transportation and decrease of emissions at the same time! GKN Aerospace is a global actor engaged in meeting the conflicting global needs. Tsampas Spyros explains more in the interview below.
1) What are the most important challenges within your field in connection to lightweight and transportation?
As air transport continues to play a key role in connecting people across the globe and in particular in emerging markets or in cases where other transportation alternatives are not viable, air traffic is expected to double in the next 15 years (approximately 2.5 times since 2000). While commercial aviation contributes 3.6% of global GDP and is expected to deliver a cumulative US$4.9 trillion over the next 20 years, at the same time contributes 2% to 3% of the world’s manmade emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The increased demand for air transport and as a consequence for new passenger aircrafts (in the order of 38000 over the next 20 years), will likely lead to an increase in the sector’s cumulative emissions if the necessary measures to meet the goals set by among others the EU (ACARE, Flightpath 2050) and ICAO for reduced emissions, noise, improved efficiency and sustainability are not taken.
2) How can your work contribute to these challenges?
The work we carry out at GKN Aerospace in Sweden and globally is well in line with the industry’s significant efforts to meet those targets in a sustainable manner and thus limit the impact on our environment. Our approach to sustainability is summed up in one phrase: doing the right thing – by our people, as a business, and in our world. This means acting in a safe and ethical manner in everything we do. The products we design and deliver to our customers are designed to perform better than their predecessors, be lighter, more efficient or resulting in less waste. In addition, our active involvement in R&D activities within the framework of national and international initiatives on innovative technologies such as electric/hybrid propulsion, sustainable aviation fuels, additive manufacturing and advanced composites among others, positions us well for addressing the future challenges.
3) What challenges for lightweight development within transportation in general would you like to emphasise?
The high demand for new, lightweight and fuel efficient aircrafts (and engines) necessitates radical step changes in the whole product cycle-from design and manufacturing to quality assurance and recycling. In order to meet this high demand and production rates at the right cost, the OEMs together with the entire supply chain will inevitably be under pressure given that the current infrastructure is not capable of meeting those rates. From lightweight development point of view, to address those challenges the focus should be on sustainable technologies that offer step changes in materials (enablers for breakthrough performance that justify the high qualification cost), manufacturability (design for manufacturing mindset with extensive part integration, high rates and increased automation, low buy-to-fly ratio) and finally cost (reduced cost of quality for high production rates, leverage of technologies from other high-volume industries, increased utilisation of numerical modelling to reduce development time and production risk).
