๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐๐ถ๐ด๐ถ๐ผ๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ ๐ถ๐ป ๐ฐ๐ผ๐บ๐ฝ๐ผ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ถ๐ป๐ฑ๐๐๐๐ฟ๐!
On 5 March the partners in the Airbus MultiFunctional Fuselage Demonstrator project received their JEC Composites Innovation Award 2025 for โAerospace Partsโ at the JEC World show in Paris. With more 170 applicants to the award, it is a huge honour to be part of the winning team.
On behalf of the TU Delft Aerospace Engineering faculty and SAM XL Hein Koelman, Aydin van den Bergh, Abhas Choudhary and Johan van Stuyvesant Meijen were part of this celebration.
A team of TU Delft aerospace structures specialists led by researcher Irene Fernandez Villegas and SAM XL engineers assembled the lower half of the full scale thermoplastic composite demonstrator built in the project.
SAM XLโs STUNNING project lead Abhas Choudhary: “Lightweight structures and assemblies are crucial to make aircraft more sustainable. Every kilogramme less, directly saves fuel. In the STUNNING project, we have demonstrated automated assembly of thermoplastic composite parts, using our in-house designed end effector for ultrasonic welding with our gantry robot.”
Lead Engineer Bram Jongbloed is developing continuous ultrasonic welding for the assembly of thermoplastic composite parts. “Last year, our process already reached Airbus TRL3 qualification. In the Dutch subsidy programmes NXTGEN Hightech and Luchtvaart in Transitie, we will further mature this technology to enable large scale application of lightweight, thermoplastic composite parts.”
York C. Roth, R&T Programme Technical Leaderย of Airbus: “It’s the Oscar, the gold medal, the world cup of composites! Congratulations to all partners for this outstanding achievement!”
Project partners in the Dutch part of the STUNNING project: TU Delft, GKN Fokker, Nederlands Lucht- en Ruimtevaartcentrum, Diehl Aviation.
A huge thank you to our entire SAM XL team: everyone contributed to this success. Special thanks to our former CEO Dr. Kjelt van Rijswijk and former engineer Rik Tonnaer; your contribution was truly XL!
More information:
– TU Delft press release on winning the JEC Innovation Award
– Video of the achievements on the lower MFFD fuselage at our SAM XL facility
The STUNNING project was funded by the European CleanSky2 programme.
