The final aim of Wheel Watcher project is to boost the profitability of the railway sector by means of an advanced wheel status monitoring and control system, providing railway operators with accurate and real-time information on wheel wear to drive preventive maintenance actions thus avoiding premature replacement of this equipment. Main industrial impact of the project is to achieve a wheel life increase of 50%, and an increase of 25% of distance between wheel reprofiling actions, allowing the railway operator for conducting a remote but in-depth inspection of wheels. This industrial impact involves a subsequent relevant economic impact, targeting a cost reduction of 25% in maintenance-related costs as a result of less spare wheels and less low value-added works needed. These industrial impacts rely on relevant technical progresses: a high precision mechatronic platform addressing mechanical challenges derived of its wayside placement, a remote measuring unit comprising an ad-hoc thermoelectric cell guaranteeing thermal stability under potential extreme weather conditions, and a novel laser system doubling current power density available, able to measure trains moving at high speeds in outdoor locations, and a user-friendly control software including a self-diagnosis tool. WheelWatcher will have a deep impact on project’s partners, producing an aggregate profit of 23 M€ with more than 35 new jobs expected to be created, and a positive environmental impact due to less CO2 and less scrap. Excellence of the project will allow for dramatic improvements regarding the more relevant challenges faced by railway operators, as compared to the current state-of-the-art: automated high frequency wheel measuring, enhanced quality of measurements at normal speed (100 km/h) irrespective of weather conditions, remote monitoring without costly displacements to the tracks, no need of service disruption during measuring processes, and as consequence of all, a cut on operating costs.

Manufacturing is one of the strongest motors of the European economy. The recent Covid-19 crisis has remarked even more the importance of maintaining manufacturing in Europe and the risks of offshoring the production and at the same time this is a unique opportunity to reshape the economy and change the way Europe manufactures products. Before the coronavirus crisis there was a clear trend to replace metal parts by composite parts to reduce the weight of the components and increase the performance of products. The global composites market size was expected to grow from USD 74 billion in 2020 to USD 112.8 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 8.8%, but unfortunately the EU market share was not growing as rapidly. Moreover, EU composite manufacturing industry was extremely concerned with the dust generated during composite machining due to the potential cancer risk related to the breathing of fibres and resin, and severe health issues on skin, eyes, lungs and liver. The strategy set on the Recovery Plan for Europe by the European Commission provides an optimistic future for composite manufacturing in Europe, since it is aligned with the strategy of reinforcing the stronger industrial capability and the EU Green Deal for cleaner transport and logistics (composites for lightweight cars and planes) and rolling out renewable energy projects (composites for wind mill blades). FIBREMACH project answers the needs of European composite part manufacturers for cleaner processes and to increase the competitiveness of the EU industry by proposing a robotic system that will disrupt current state of the art of composite machining including an internal dust suction system for improved health and safety conditions by minimizing the exposure of humans to dust with fibres and resins, reduced energy consumption, increased performance and continuous process monitoring and control for “control for “right the first time” machining, while being 68% cheaper than milling machines.

In the aerospace industry very high quality standards have to be met. For the manufacturing of carbon fibre parts this is currently solved through extended end-of-line inspection in combination with re-work processes to deal with defective parts. Also, in-situ visual inspection is used for quality control, which is currently causing huge productivity losses (30%-50%) during lay-up and has become a real bottleneck in carbon fibre parts manufacturing. The project will provide a solution by developing inline quality control methods for the key process steps: automatic lay-up (dry fibre placement and automatic dry material placement) and curing. At the system level decision support systems will be developed that assist human decision-making when assessing defects and when planning the part flow through the production line. These will be supported by simulation tools for part verification and logistical planning. The future manufacturing of the A320neo wing covers will be provide the background for the developments. Each such wing cover consists of two parts, that each cost several hundred thousand Euros in manufacturing. Assuming the planned production rates of 60 planes per month from 2025, savings of 150 MEUR in production costs can be obtained per year. The consortium consists of all key players that will play a future role in the manufacturing of such large carbon fibre parts. Airbus with its research centers Airbus Group Innovations and FIDAMC will play a leading role in the consortium as far as the multi-stage manufacturing process is concerned. Machine builders (MTorres, Danobat) and research centers will develop the inline quality control, while Dassault Systémes will provide simulation support.