Embracing Digitalizationis the Future of theAerospace Industry.
By Slaheddine Frikha,
Aerospace Industry Director, ESI Group.

get it right.

We recently sat downwith our Aerospace
Industry Director,
Slaheddine Frikha,
to get his views on thecurrent status of theindustry.

“The aviation industry is caught
between two very strong trends.
They must reduce environmental
impact, while there is a hugeincrease in travel demand.

You were at the most recent Paris Air Show, which is one of the biggest events in theaviation calendar. What were your main takeaways from the event?
It was the first session after four years, and after
a period where the aviation industry was very
impacted and had to see a lot of adaptation interms of making the industry survive and so on.
This year was clearly tuned towords the future, andeverything was set to say the industry is recoveringand looking ahead.
I was really impressed to see the new Open
Rotor prototype engine exhibited on the SAFRAN
prototype booth next to the Leap, their flagshipengine which is already a great technologicalfeat that has enabled substantial savings in fuelconsumption, and therefore in pollutant emissions.
The Open Rotor aims to go even further, and seeing
it exhibited on SAFRAN’s booth is proof that this iscoming in the very near future.
Urban Air mobility vehicles were the superstarsof the airshow with their own dedicated hall.
Four years ago, they were just presented as newconcepts, nothing was flying, but this year there

were several OEM’s exhibiting full-scale eVTOL
aircraft and offering visitors the possibility to get
inside and experience it. The progress made in fouryears is absolutely incredible.
Another fact that shows the spirit of an industry
moving forward was the very high interest inrecruiting new talent, which shows anotherdimension of an industry that needs to create a newfuture based on new technology. Hall Concorde,which was usually dedicated to research andinnovation, was this time dedicated to attracting
talent and to promoting jobs and skills needed toachieve next year’s challenges.
So, the general message of the show was: “changeis for now”, and the industry is more ready than everto embrace technological breakthroughs resulting
from decades of research and innovation.While it’s positive that everybody is trying to look to the future, innovate, and move things
forward, there must be some challenges still facing the aerospace industry?
The aviation industry is caught between two verystrong trends. They must reduce environmental
impact, while there is a huge increase in travel
demand. We saw that this summer- it was very difficult
to find a flight in comparison to previous years. So
there is no choice but to implement very fundamental
changes in the way they are designing, manufacturing,and operating aircrafts.
This needs to happen in the next 10 years, which is
not a long time in aviation. Not only are new andmore sustainable aircraft needed, but it is a wholeecosystem that needs to transform to be able to reachambitious carbon neutrality targets. For example,
new engines with sustainable fuel will induce a deepchange in aircraft architecture and design, and beyond
that, a whole ecosystem must adapt, like airports,
ground facilities and safety appliances.
This can only happen with the integration of several
breakthrough technologies that have to operatesmoothly together.

“There is no choice but toimplement very fundamental
changes in the way they aredesigning, manufacturing,and operating aircrafts.

You mentioned a change in architecture and design is needed.
Are there any specific challenges you see from the design and production perspective?
Let’s focus on Aircraft OEM’s and their supplychain. They are at the leading edge of a change thatmust happen and must happen fast. And as a result,they will be facing two challenges.

the last decade, with the move from the CFM56
engine (and similar) to the LEAP engine thatdrastically reduced the operating cost of single aisle
aircraft.

The first challenge is to succeed in designing
more sustainable aircrafts and accelerating new
programs to get new aircrafts ready for the sky.

That created a huge demand on this aircraft
segment, leading to an unprecedented increase inproduction rate, and causing production facilities
for the OEM duopoly of Airbus and Boeing, andtheir supply chain, to struggle.

The second challenge is to produce enough new
aircrafts to replace the many old ones and achievea massive emission reduction on time. Therefore,
the target in terms of sustainability can only beachieved if production rate allows for a quick
replacement of current fleets at affordable cost.
The combination of both challenges adds tothe complexity of the whole equation. Aircraft
OEM’s and suppliers must rethink their design andengineering process to consider manufacturing
efficiency early in the design phase to shorten time
to market, and secure cost-effective technology forproduction.
We have already seen that ramp-up with the firstphase of fuel consumption reduction achieved in

In the last decade, breakthroughs in engines,and aircraft technologies overall, to reduce fuelconsumption were developed to fulfill a businesscritical objective that was mostly motivated by
the reduction of operating costs. However, as oftoday, more than half of in-operation aircrafts arestill flying with old technologies due to overall
economic balance.
Toady’s new challenges related to climate neutrality
have to be addressed as a mission-critical target.
It is not optional anymore; it is an obligation tosurvive.

The adoption of these new enabling technologies and new processes that are designed tohelp ramp up production can often be quite slow for OEMs. Why do you think that is?
The aviation industry is very driven by certification.
The design of an aircraft cannot tolerate any risk,accident, or serious incidents happening during aflight.

The main enabler here is to move to the crossprocess, digitalization bridging, model-basedengineering workflow for the whole development
cycle.

What is new today is that the certification is not
only impacting the design itself, but also theproduction.

Now, from the beginning, we can optimize thedesign, but we can also optimize manufacturing
and assembly processes to be sure that what we
produce is consistent with what has been designed,
and to predict more accurately the effects ofdifferent scenarios and variation.

This basically avoids the additional design margins
that create additional costs and increase lead times
due to manufacturing uncertainties and production
variabilities in the design phase.

The certification of production capabilities
and processes can then rely on such predictive
capabilities, including both physical modelling
assets and operational data intelligence.

Are there any digital technologies that you see more companies are open to adopting- for example virtual reality, the use of digital twins or AI?
One of the main drivers is understanding the needto integrate. Aggregating various new technologies
leads to a higher number of new situations whereknowledge based on previous aircrafts may become
obsolete and a trial-and-error approach is no longer
an option. This is pretty new to the aircraft industry
which is used to evolving incrementally.
Our role in the digitalization value chain is toposition virtual prototyping as a key enabler, to test
and validate such aggregation in a comprehensive
way, allowing teams to work in a natural way agility and collaboration is very, very important.
Bringing in immersive metaverse technology to beunderstood, and to a level of readiness that can beused by industry, is a very good example for talking
about digitalization. It is building the foundation.
You have a real scale model that you can operatewith your own hand and create an incredible
number of experiences for very low cost, andthrough that you can get more knowledge, moreinsight, and even more data.

“It is a whole ecosystem thatneeds to transform…this canonly happen with the integrationof several breakthroughtechnologies that have to operatesmoothly together.

Can you give any examples of ESI solutions that are enabling innovationin any of these areas?
What are ESI doing today?
One - we are bringing an industrial metaverse to life with a robust virtual reality solution addressing real-world challenges. Our solution
allows people to work together in a virtual world, without need for physical prototypes, gathering people together without needing to
be in the same place to interact, evaluate and decide. Teams meet around a full-scale model and experience it like they would around aphysical mockup. This is something that closes a big gap in terms of agility and collaborative engineering. Our IC.IDO software is tailored
to define and validate assembly and maintenance operations, smoothly leading to a concurrent “product and process” test and validation.
We are proud to be pioneers of this kind of technology, which will expand into several other engineering domains. The starting blocks weare building will unleash many possibilities and leverage digital capabilities to accelerate innovation.

The second area where we have a very important role to play is to support theaircraft industry reaching new heights in terms of material performance. This isa very critical objective to reach sustainability targets set for the industry. The
Aeronautic industry must increase the propulsion system performance and, at thesame time, decrease aircraft’s overall weight, while also securing safe and durable
structures and systems.
An emblematic example is the high-pressure turbine of turbojet engine - a key
stage system that has drastically contributed to the increase in energy efficiency ofmodern aircraft engines through key breakthroughs in aerodynamics, structures,and high-performance materials.
ESI is the preferred partner of engine OEM’s and their part suppliers around theworld, providing tailored solutions for manufacturing process simulation, based on
our high skills in material physical modelling. ESI’s ProCAST enables Investment
Casting process simulation that leads to new heights in terms of high-strengthand high-temperature capability of single crystal materials. Going beyond such
performance is a critical objective for future energy efficient gas-turbine engines.
Thirdly, ESI is helping the emerging eVTOL industry to face critical challenges,
from energy efficiency to secure an affordable range, to safety requirements andsocial acceptance. Noise level is a key criterion for social acceptance for bothpassenger comfort and community impact. Adoption of new urban air mobility
will ultimately require an innovative acoustic design. Here also, ESI plays a keyrole providing flagship players with advanced solutions for full frequency acoustic
simulation.
ESI VA-One enables our customers to predict noise propagation through andacross complex systems, like interior lining and sophisticated noise control
treatment, fitting tailored composite structure. By relying on such predictivemodelling, our customers can shift left the acoustic design in the overall productdevelopment lifecycle, unleashing key possibilities combining noise source
reduction and aircraft structure acoustic performance. This is a critical target
to optimize the design of ad-hoc noise control treatment with a minimum ofadditional weight.

The starting blocks
we are building
will unleash many
possibilities andleverage digital
capabilities toaccelerate innovation.

About Slaheddine Frikha
Slaheddine Frikha is Industry and Partnership Senior Director at
ESI Group. He is a Mechanical Engineer graduated from École
Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers and holds a PhD in
Applied Mechanics. He conducted several research projects
as a professor at Paris University. He joined ESI Group in 2002
to lead the newly acquired Vibroacoustic Business Unit andhas held several Business Development positions. Over thepast decade, he is leading the Aerospace industry business bydeveloping new opportunities and nurturing deep relationships
with the ecosystem. He holds the ESI membership in several
innovation and professional organizations, working closely withindustry leaders to engage in digital transformation, leveraging
IoT, digitalization and Data Intelligence enablers for safe,
productive and sustainable operations.

Dive Deeper!
Visit our dedicated Aerospace webpages and learn how ESI is enabling the aerospace industry to addresscomplex challenges with the use of virtual prototyping software.
esi-group.com/industries/aerospace-defense

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