A collaborative Research project funded by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) within the fourth call of the Programme “National Strategic Consortiums of Technical Research” (CENIT) coming under the framework of the INGENIO 2010 Spanish government initiative. The ICARO programme is a national consortium -with a total budget of 34 M€ and four years of duration- integrated by 12 industrial partners of the aerospace sector and various research organisations, coordinated by Airbus Spain. The project is focused in fundamental and applied research activities to manufacture new advanced composites, as well as in the study of new airplane designs and configurations.

IMDEA Materials Institute participates in this CENIT programme with two tasks. The first one is to manufacture different structural elements –stiffeners, crossbars, etc- of C-fiber composites by fabric impregnation using a pultrusion procedure. IMDEA Materials Institute , in collaboration with Aries Estructuras Aeroespaciales, S.A., will divide the study in 3 main stages; study of the manufacturing procedure of C-fiber composites by fabric impregnation using pultrusion, tool and manufacturing optimisation, and mechanical characterisation of the pultruded profiles followed by comparison with the mechanical properties of the structural elements obtained through autoclave curing. The second task of IMDEA Materials Institute will be devoted to the advanced numerical simulation of the behavior of C-fiber composites subjected to lighting impact. This task will be accomplished in collaboration with the MTAD division of EADS-CASA.