This project will focus on the development of technologies and methodologies which have the potential to save costs and time across the whole life cycle of the aircraft (design, production, maintenance, overhaul, repair and retrofit), including for certification aspects. Moreover it will also target the integration of additional functions or materials in structural components of the aircraft, the increased use of automation. The first proposed step is the introduction of the γ-TiAl alloy, a well known promising advanced material for aerospace applications and a revolutionary manufacturing technology. Its specific stiffness and strength, as compared to its low weight, potentially leads to large weight savings (50%), and therefore lower mechanical loads on thermomechanical stressed parts, compared to the common Ni based superalloys. The integration of new material and new manufacturing technology will positively impact several aspects of the manufacturing and maintenance chain, starting from the design, the production, the repair). The aim of this project is twofold: - On one side the work will be focused on the development and integration at industrial of a IPR protected gas atomization process for producing TiAl powders, whose properties must be highly stable from batch to batch. Thanks to the stability of the chemical and granulometric properties of the powders, the application of the Rapid Manufacturing technique to the production of TiAl components will be economically affordable. While this technique is by now well-known, its main drawback resides in the scarce quality of the starting powders. - The other main drawback for the wide industrial application of TiAl components is the integrated optimisation of all the machining steps, that means the setting up of machine tool characteristics and parameters, cutting tool geometry, substrate and coating materials, advanced lubrication technologies.

The advances in the Information and Communication Technologies are revolutionizing our everyday life. However, the manufacturing industry does not yet take complete advantage of this huge potential. Using the latest ICT developments, MC-SUITE project wants to boost the productivity of manufacturing industry. On the one hand, machining process modelling empowered by High Performance Computing technologies allows simulating precisely the cutting process including force and surface quality. On the other hand, monitoring of the machine empowered by Big Data and Cloud technologies allows analysing the real process including vibration and process instability issues. Bridging the gap between virtual and real worlds, correlations of the simulated and monitored cutting process will allow optimizing both simulation and machining performances. In agreement with the work programme, the combination of manufacturing technologies and ICT is at the core of the construction of this consortium. The project will complement science with innovation to propose new software frameworks which can collect information from multi-monitoring devices as turnkey technologies to improve the machining process. MC-SUITE will produce multiple impacts in the European industry, reflecting the trans-disciplinary nature of the project. The participation of industrial partners, both SMEs and large companies from ICT and industrial sectors, will ensure that the project will directly impact on wide range of industries such as metal part manufacturing, Computer-Aided Manufacturing software, machine tool industry. MC-SUITE project has the opportunity to produce a new breakthrough in the productivity of the European manufacturing industry.

MASTRO Project aim is to develop intelligent bulk materials for the transport sector based on the novel concepts like self-sensing, self-deicing, self-curing, self-healing and self-protection methodologies to increase consumer safety, component life-span and performance while reducing maintenance and manufacturing costs. The functionality of the developed components will be demonstrated under relevant conditions at prototype level for the aerospace, automotive and transport transport networks. These developments will be supported by theoretical material models to capture the self-responsive functionalities. The outputs of the Project will consist of numerous applications in these sectors. The matrices addressed consist of lightweight polymer composites like glass/carbon fibre reinforced polymers and thermoplastic materials (including melt-spinning for textiles used in the transport sector) together with asphalt and concrete formulations incorporating electrical carbon-based conductive nanomaterials. These self-responsive functionalities are based on two physical phenomena: piezoresistivity and Joule effect. The aim of self-responsiveness properties can be summarized as follows: Self-sensing: to confer to the intelligent components the ability to monitor/store data about its own condition in terms of vibrations, defects, fatigue, creep and strain. Self-deicing: to avoid the ice layer formation or the loss of performance due to cold weather. Self-curing: to increase quality and durability while reducing manufacturing cost of the polymer composites and cement concrete formulations by improving the curing process step. Self-healing: to aid the repair of polymer composites and asphalt concrete formulations by healing those materials without the need of an external and expensive maintenance operation. Self-protection: to minimize the failure occurrence in case of electrostatic charge accumulation or lightning impacts by discharging the voltage through the smart component