At the recent 23rd International Conference on Composite Materials (ICCM23) held in Belfast, 30th July to 4th August 2023, the CerTest team organised a very successful workshop and panel session themed, ‘Modernising Routes to Compliance with Composite Regulations: A Journey towards Virtual Testing and Digital Twinning’. The event, listed as an Industrial Needs Session in the ICCM23 programme, took place on 1st August 2023.
The event followed up on similar successful sessions on modernising composites regulations that were held at the ICCM21 in Xi’an in 2017, and the ICCM22 in Melbourne 2019.
The overarching aim was to define a cross-sector view on the need for modernisation of routes to demonstrate compliance with composites regulations. This includes discussion of viable routes forward with respect to lessening the burden of meeting regulations, including reducing cost and time to market whilst also enabling improved performance. The workshop/panel sessions addressed this through a selection of invited talks covering academia (CerTest representatives), regulators (EASA – European Aviation Safety Agency; DNV – regulations wind turbine blades and structures), and industry (Airbus – aerospace, Vestas Wind Systems – wind turbines, and Jacobs – construction industry).
The event, which was attended by more than 100 conference participants on and off, was highly successful, with insightful and thought provoking invited talks and many questions and lively discussions.
The programme of the event is listed below with links to the invited presentations which can be downloaded.
Programme
‘Welcome, background and aims of workshop / introduction to speakers’: Janice Barton, Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol, UK
‘CerTest: scientific foundations for a novel framework for performance validation of composite aerostructures relying less on physical testing and adopting digital twinning’, Ole Thomsen, Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol, UK
‘CerTest: enhanced performance and productivity through integration of multi-scale modelling, high-fidelity experimentation and Bayesian learning’, Richard Butler & Andy Rhead, University of Bath, UK
‘Developing composite (and other advanced manufactured) product certification – a regulator perspective’, Simon Waite, EASA, DE
‘Overview of current processes and future developments in composites certification – a wind turbine industry perspective’, Chris Harrison, DNV Denmark, DK
‘VVUQ framework to assess credibility of simulation of composite structures’, Ludovic Barriere, IRT Saint Exupéry, F
‘Regulatory barriers across to efficient validation and certification of composites across sectors and applications’, Enrique Garcia, National Composites Centre, UK
‘An Airbus perspective on challenges in certification for future airframes’, Linden Harris, Airbus, UK
‘Offshore wind turbine blade certification – challenges and opportunities’, Stephen Randall Vestas Wind Systems, UK
‘Barriers and opportunities in certification of composites for infrastructure applications’, Lee Canning, Jacobs, UK (presentation to follow)