Challenges in the Life Cycle Assessment of fibre reinforced polymers using the example of a composite aircraft interior shell

Abstract

Lightweight structures made of fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) already play an important role in the reduction of fuel consumption in the aviation sector. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool to support decision making by giving valuable information on different categories of potential environmental impacts for the whole life cycle of a product. While nowadays the aircraft use phase is by far predominant in the majority of the environmental impact categories considered in LCA, both production and end-of-life must not be disregarded in order to ensure the smallest possible ecological footprint. In this presentation, a preliminary LCA from a business class seat shell demonstrator in the SuCoHS* EU project will show potential reductions of environmental impacts by choice of design and materials compared to the state-of-the-art structure. Based on this example, todays challenges of LCA in the fields of FRP and aviation in general are addressed. *) SuCoHS (Sustainable and cost efficient high-performance composite structures demanding temperature and fire resistance). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 769178.