Compositadour is participating in the development of bamboo fibre aeroplane parts

The technology platform Compositadour consists of seven companies and a research laboratory grouped into one consortium. It is located at Technocité, and is contributing to the BAMCO project (BAmboo long fibre reinforced biobased Matrix COmposites). The goal is to design biosourced technical composites using long bamboo fibres, which could be used in aeroplane interiors. 

Reducing the environmental footprint of aeroplanes is one of the challenges facing the aeronautic industry, which is focussing its research and development work on designing new materials. Biocomposites are light, provide good thermal resistance and have advantageous mechanical properties. They could therefore be used in cabin interiors and in making cover panels and fuselage cladding.

This is the goal of the BAMCO project, certified by the Aerospace Valley competitiveness cluster and approved by the Directorate-General for Enterprise (DGE) under the FUI 24 (inter-ministerial fund for financing competitiveness cluster projects). The project is also supported by the regions of Occitania, Pyrénées-Méditerranée and Normandy, and by Bpifrance.

From the laboratory to industrial manufacture

After four years’ development in the laboratory by the group Assystem Technologies and the Inter-University Centre for Research and Engineering of Materials (CIRIMAT) in Toulouse, the project went into the industrial manufacturing phase in October. Five new companies (Cobratex, Lisa Aeronautics, Specific Polymers, Mecano ID, Arkema) and the technology platform Compositadour for advanced materials at the Technocité site have joined the project. The consortium aims to present the first prototypes in 2021.

The six companies will be responsible for conducting research on species of bamboo (including some grown in France), designing and trialling prototypes and formulating and applying the biosourced polymers used for the composite matrices. CIRIMAT and Compositadour will contribute to using the bio-composites in the laboratory and on an industrial scale.

Find out more at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/compositadour