Challenges in the design of future structuresmade of CFRP

Reduction of structural weight of primary constructions in the aerospace, space and automotive industry is an important contribution to decrease development and operating costs. Lower structural weight has also an impact on reduced fuel consumption and therefore also a positive effect on the environment. The use of structures made of CFRP is one promising possibility to reach this goal. Composites are not only lighter than metallics but they allow also designing structures according special functions. One example is the design of laminates which do not have any strains due to temperature. This presentation gives in the field of composite structures an overview about the state-of-the-art and demonstrates an outlook in the design of future aircraft structures. It shows highlights of research pro-jects of the DLR Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems. In addition, activities of CFK-Valley, which has more than 90 members (Airbus, VW, …), will be presented. The use of CFRP is for primary aerospace structures already accepted. The part of that material on the whole aircraft structure is continuously increasing. Boeing brings in the near future the Dreamliner 787 which contains more than 50% of CFRP. Airbus is currently designing the Airbus A350, which will contain a similar part of composites. Although, this is a significant step in the aerospace technology, the first airplane generation will not use the full potential of the composite structures. The reason is that there is still a need for research in the area of Effects of Defects, Structural Health Monitoring or auto-mation of the manufacturing process. The already finished EU Project COCOMAT1 demonstrated that composite lightweight structures have a large potential in the postbuckling area, which is not exploited. Metallic structures use this postbuckling area already for a long time. In the running EU project MAAXIMUS2 the findings are further developed and full composite fuselage barrels are designed ex-ploiting all reserve capacities. The concepts and design tools, which were developed in different re-search projects mainly for the aerospace, are also transferable for structures in the automotive industry. This presentation shows examples from different research projects. The last section informs about the activities of CFK-Valley Stade e.V.. This network connects the world leading partners in the area composite technology. This concentrated knowledge is a full chain of exper-tise beginning in the material production and ending with the recycling process. It generates for all members high technological innovations and therefore advantages in the very competitive market.