IK4-Azterlan is one of the three technical centers from IK4 Research Alliance taking part in this European Project, along with an important group of leading international companies like Dassault Aviation, Aeronautics IAI, Constellium and AELS.
The aircraft industry is under a constant evolution in order to design lighter vessels, reducing fuel consumption and emissions, and getting as well more efficient recycling processes that allow an optimum reuse of valuable materials used in their construction.
In this context is set the European research project SENTRY, an initiative led by the IK4 Research Alliance, which is part of the Clean Sky program. An ambitious public-private partnership between the European Commission (EC) and the aircraft industry, established to improve the environmental impacts of aviation.
The project is aimed to carry out specific recycling technologies for aluminum alloys and materials integrated in the aircraft fuselage panels, to ensure that the materials used are not diverted to lower value-added products and can be re incorporated into the original application.
At present, although the panels are formed by different materials, they all have a common recycling process, which means a non efficient use of raw materials.