ISQ develops project of aerostructures in composite materials in partnership with Embraer

The airline industry is currently one of the sectors with the highest growth globally. Supported by a strong increase in passengers on all continents as well as by a robust demand for cheaper and environmentally friendly aircraft the order backlogs of the main builders have never been filled. The two largest manufacturers Airbus and Boeing need respectively seven and ten years to deliver all aircraft already ordered. The main challenge of this industry today thus lies in the need to increase the production cadences to keep up with their customers’ needs. This is also a high value-added high-tech and internationalized production chain industry. In Portugal where the interest of this industry has for many years recognized it has multiplied the initiatives to secure foreign investment and develop a chain of national supply. Embraer company based in Brazil and world’s third largest manufacturer of civil aircraft passengers settled permanently in Portugal in 2005 when it took control of OGMA company mainly dedicated to the area of ​​maintenance. Later he built in Évora two industrial companies opened in 2012 dedicated to the production of metallic aerostructures and composite materials. Thus it has radically changed the landscape of the airline industry in our country and Embraer now has a key role in the development of a national supply chain taking the next step of the process to create strategic partnerships between its new business and industry already established in our country. However the objectives of Embraer in Portugal go beyond what is already being done in the areas of maintenance and industrial production also including the area of ​​engineering and technology development. In this field there is the partnership between Embraer and the ISQ. ISQ group of Portuguese origin is dedicated to engineering the inspections and tests. It is supported by a laboratory network wide coverage driven by an important activity R & D and has a turnover of around 90 million euros per year mostly held abroad. Your customers are in different industrial areas such as the energy sector space auto public works among many others. In Portugal and taking advantage of the development progress of the company in Portugal ISQ is working with Embraer not only in units of Évora industries but also an ambitious aerostructures development project in composite materials in partnership with Embraer SA Composites. The result of constant investment in innovation use of such materials has increased significantly in the airline industry allowing you to build more economic aircraft lighter more comfortable with a smaller ecological footprint. This project supported by NSRF funds / COMPETE aims to research and ground tests of a large aero-structure that will allow Embraer to increase their knowledge in the use of composite materials in such structures. For ISQ this is a very important project not only because it strengthens the ties of cooperation between the two entities but also because it allows your training for multidisciplinary tests of long duration and with a level of complexity increased. This training will allow the ISQ to position itself as a supplier of this type of testing at European level and strengthening its knowledge in composite materials whose use is far from being exhausted in the aeronautic industry. The project is centered on the ISQ facilities in Castelo Branco and consists of making a series of dynamic static testing and impact on the aero-structure in the inspection of materials using advanced techniques of non-destructive inspection and conducting preliminary campaigns of mechanical and impact. This is a test campaign which lasts about a year preceded by a long phase of preparation that includes impact tests on specimens for research and calibration of the test in the aero-structure. These impacts performed with different energy levels are achieved with two different types of impactors designed specially for this project. This activity involves several ISQ skills including engineering testing aerospace instrumentation mechanical tests NDT metal structures welding metrology and project management. ISQ has a partner first-Portuguese SMEs Optimal Structural Solutions specializes in composite materials technology even with the support of several based metalworking companies in Castelo Branco and Leiria district. The project also includes the design and development along with Embraer of test metal structures and all procedures related to different fronts. & Nbsp; The good progress of a project like this high-content and technological risk seems to suggest that Embraer is now a valid example of how a foreign investor can be installed in Portugal initially in only industrial logic and as a second step can extend its range activities for the development of technology integrating valences of the Scientific and Technological System and contributing to the desired externality to consolidate a cluster of aircraft industry. Such progress is likely to be successful if the national side there are entities able to adapt and respond adequately to the demands of the industry and to work on specific technological challenges with global companies such as Embraer. The ISQ is such that it is possible. It should be noted the Portuguese Government support highlighting the AICEP an excellent example of continuity of public policies that have helped maintain the conditions necessary for the consolidation of this industrial cluster. It remains to add that these synergies come to demonstrate that it is possible to Portuguese industry move up the value chain and prove that he has all the conditions to be successful in high technical and organizational complexity activities. & Nbsp; According to Joaquim Guedelha Vice President of ISQ “ As important as attracting investment to the country is secure it and create the conditions to keep for many years. The continuity of the business depends heavily on its product development capabilities. This in turn requires a supportive and Engineering Laboratory of high technological level. AICEP Embraer and the ISQ formed the triangle that has responded to the conditions set out above making the project possible and enabling a set of contacts among experts believe will bring even more and greater challenges in the near future. ” & Nbsp; The part of Embraer in Évora and according to Paul Marchioto President of Embraer Portugal SGPS SA “ This design with ISQ is for us a first example of the kind of initiatives that interests us very much held in Portugal in support of composites Embraer strategy while Group Centre of Excellence in composite materials. ” He adds that “ beyond the critical aero-structures that have produced in Evora is our goal to maintain a generation of unique knowledge locally counting on the crucial support of reference entities of the scientific and technological system as ISQ . “