Refractory materials are key enablers for high temperature industries such as Iron & Steelmaking (I&S). Refractories are sophisticated materials designed and optimized to sustain severe operation conditions inducing complex combinations of thermo-mechano-chemical damage mechanisms. Nevertheless, refractory material consumption has been reduced over the last 50 years from more than 35 kg of refractories per ton of steel to about 10 kg/t in the European steel industry, while keeping safety of the utmost importance. The movement of the I&S industry towards Net-Zero emissions and digitalized processes through disruptive, breakthrough technologies will be achieved through the use of Hydrogen. The biggest challenge for the refractory industry is to continue to meet the performance expectations while, at the same time, moving to a more sustainable production direction. The complexity and urgency of these technology changes, highlighted by the European Green Deal, requires a Concerted European Action on Sustainable Applications of REFractories (CESAREF). A consorted and coordinated European network with steel, refractory, raw material producers and key academic poles will tackle the following key topics: • Efficient use of raw materials and recycling, • Microstructure design for increased sustainability, • Anticipation of hydrogen steelmaking, • Energy efficiency and durability. While creating new developments in the I&S and refractory industries, the network will train highly skilled doctoral candidates capable of communicating and disseminating their acquired knowledge. CESAREF will create a core team across the European refractory value chain, accelerating the drive towards the European refractory industries push towards sustainable materials and processes, as well as Net-Zero emission Steel production. This will help to create and secure sustainable employment in the European refractory and I&S industries.

HERA will identify and trade-off the concept of a regional aircraft, its key architectures, develop required aircraft-level technologies and integrate the required enablers in order to meet the -50% technology-based GHG emission set in SRIA for a Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft. The HERA aircraft, having a size of approximately of 50-100 seats, will operate in the regional and short-range air mobility by mid-2030 on typical distances of less than 500 km (inter-urban regional connections). The aircraft will be ready for future inter-modal and multi-modal mobility frameworks for sustainability. The HERA aircraft will include hybrid-electric propulsion based on batteries or fuel cells as energy sources supported by SAF or hydrogen burning for the thermal source, to reach up to 90% lower emissions while being fully compliant with ICAO noise rules. The HERA aircraft will be ready for entry into service by mid-2030, pursuing to the new certification rules, able to interact with new ground infrastructure, supporting new energy sources. This will make HERA aircraft ready for actual revenue service offering to operators and passengers sustainable, safe and fast connectivity mean at low GHG emissions HERA will quantitatively trade innovative aircraft architectures and configurations required to integrate several disruptive enabling technologies including high voltage MW scale electrical distribution, thermal management, new wing and fuselage as well as the new hybrid-electric propulsion and related new energy storage at low GHG. To support this unprecedented integration challenge, HERA will develop suitable processes, tools and simulation models supporting the new interactions, workshare in the value chain and interfaces among systems and components. HERA will also elaborate on the future demonstration strategy of a hybrid–electric regional aircraft in Phase 2 of Clean Aviation to support the high TRL demonstration required for an early impact for HERA solutions.

European manufacturing is at the centre of a twin ecological and digital transition, being both driver and subject to these changes. At the same time, manufacturing companies must maintain technological leadership and stay competitive. The size and the complexity of the associated challenges - such as the integration of Artificial Intelligence, the use of industrial data, the transformation into a circular economy and the need for agility and responsiveness - requires pooling of resources and a novel approach of cooperation. The objective of the PATRON project is to develop the next generation of PHM methodologies, algorithms and technologies, so enabling condition monitoring, with the focus on real-time diagnostics and prognostics. This objective will be achieved by having 10 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) working closely and interacting frequently in this inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary area. Despite remarkable progresses in health monitoring boosted by new technologies and AI, most approaches still rely on the use of rudimentary HIs defined more than half a century ago. On the other hand the Community of Tribology is working at the micro and the macroscale of the contacts where loads are applied and wear, damage and faults occur. Impressively enough the two communities, Condition Monitoring/Prognostics and Health Management and Tribology, are following separate paths. The proposed PATRON project brings together the two communities and doctoral candidates and experienced specialists from key players in academia and industry across Europe covering different scientific disciplines and industrial stakeholders from a broad range of backgrounds to optimally tackle the challenges ahead. The PATRON Fellows will be trained in innovative PhD topics as well as receiving specific theoretical and practical education in the fields of mechanical engineering and computer science, focusing towards the next generation Prognostics and Health Management techniques.

Radical changes in aircraft configurations and operations are required to meet the target of climate-neutral aviation. To foster this transformation, innovative digital methodologies are of utmost importance to enable the optimisation of aircraft performances. NEXTAIR will develop and demonstrate innovative design methodologies, data-fusion techniques and smart health-assessment tools enabling the digital transformation of aircraft design, manufacturing and maintenance. NEXTAIR proposes digital enablers covering the whole aircraft life-cycle devoted to ease breakthrough technology maturation, their flawless entry into service and smart health assessment. They will be demonstrated in 8 industrial test cases, representative of multi-physics industrial design, maintenance problems and environmental challenges and interest for aircraft and engines manufacturers. NEXTAIR will increase high-fidelity modelling and simulation capabilities to accelerate and derisk new disruptive configurations and breakthrough technologies design. NEXTAIR will also improve the efficiency of uncertainty quantification and robust optimisation techniques to effectively account for manufacturing uncertainty and operational variability in the industrial multi-disciplinary design of aircraft and engine components. Finally, NEXTAIR will extend the usability of machine learning-driven methodologies to contribute to aircraft and engine components' digital twinning for smart prototyping and maintenance. NEXTAIR brings together 16 partners from 6 countries specialised in various disciplines: digital tools, advanced modelling and simulation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, aerospace design, and innovative manufacturing. The consortium includes 9 research organisations, 4 leading aeronautical industries providing digital-physical scaled demonstrator aircraft and engines and 2 high-Tech SME providing expertise in industrial scientific computing and data intelligence.

The main goal of DEMOQUAS is to develop an efficient framework of uncertainty quantification (UQ) and provide holistic aircraft/engine design tools (i.e. multi-fidelity, multi-disciplinary, digital threads/twins and Model Based System Engineering {MBSE} or Model Based Definition {MBD} modalities) with the capability to become ‘UQ-enabled’. In this way, it will contribute to achieving the highest level of aviation safety, regarding novel propulsion technologies. The project includes representation, characterization and propagation of uncertainties through the life cycle phases of design, manufacturing and operations, applied in six industrially relevant test cases. In this way, it will contribute to advancing the current state of the art in UQ methods, by effectively improving their efficiency (i.e. regarding ‘curse of dimensionality’ for simulation time and accuracy). The project’s ambition is to provide comprehensive UQ guidelines and enhance decision and policy making of unknown technologies’ development, support virtual certification and ensure a high level of safety and improved risk management. To achieve its main goal, the project will build on the following main objectives: • Perform detailed characterization of life cycle uncertainties for components and systems of components developed for a turboprop aircraft, based on a hybridized, liquid-H2/SAF configuration; • Employ and further develop UQ methods in a multi-layered manner: [Lifecycle] design, manufacturing/measuring, operations, [Scales/fidelities] sub-systems, systems, systems-of-systems; • Deliver an ‘as open as possible’ framework that will allow integrated propulsion system design tools/platforms to become ‘UQ-enabled’ and increase safety and risk management; • Verify and validate the UQ methodologies via testing campaigns (up to TRL5) including operational cases; • Promote the project's benefits via targeted synergies in European, national and international level.