Centre de recherche en aéronautique

Internationally recognised, in particular through its research partnership with the Safran group, the centre is active in the fields of transport, and aeronautics in particular, energy, industrial processes, buildings and software.

It has expertise in metal (welding, machining, additive manufacturing) and composite structures and processes, analysis of in-service behaviour of structures and prediction of their service life, multi-physics fluid dynamics and multi-disciplinary optimisation.

Cenaero is EN 9100:2009 and ISO 9001:2008 certified.

Facilities :

• High-Performance Computing Centre (14,000 computing cores, tier1.cenaero.be), for the benefit of fundamental, applied and industrial research.

• Prototyping, manufacturing and non-destructive testing laboratory for composite structures (oven, injection piston, RTM press, 5-axis machining centre, 3D measurement with laser arm and ultrasonic inspection).

ReWaN :

Initially set up to support the aerospace industry, Cenaero also has several years' experience in the energy, buildings and smart cities sectors. It is involved in the Wal-e-Cities project.

Expertise in the use of digital technologies for the diagnosis, design and intelligent management (predictive control and demand side management) of buildings on their own or connected to the network.

There are four main areas of operational activity:

• Collaborative research in close collaboration with industry;

• Support for companies' innovative projects through a range of advanced, tailor-made services;

• Guidance, technology transfer and dissemination to different sectors of industry;

• Providing access to our state-of-the-art infrastructure, including an intensive computing centre (Tier-1 class) and a composite laboratory.

Water:

In the water sector, Cenaero designs physico-chemical and biological treatment and filtration processes, energy-related systems (energy recovery, storage) and data analysis for the predictive management of infrastructures and systems (digital twin).

Photovoltaics:

With its expertise in wind studies in urban environments (comfort) and on envelopes (mechanical sizing), as well as in characterising turbulence and aerothermal exchanges in the vicinity of envelope elements in an open environment, Cenaero has the necessary skills to position itself in the mechanical sizing of photovoltaic installations of all types, enabling optimisation of ballast for design offices and offering expert services to the insurance sector. It assists companies in estimating the yield of installations by assessing panel heating, which requires detailed characterisation of aerothermal exchanges between the panels and the environment. It is developing tools to characterise brazing and welding, which could be put to good use in sizing module frames and fixings.

Hydrogen:

In the field of hydrogen, two R&D projects are underway in Wallonia:

• DGO4 LoopFC: optimising the efficiency of a fuel cell in domestic cogeneration by using two-phase heat exchangers.

• ERDF Inoxypem: optimising the efficiency of a fuel cell using surface heat treatment.

Completion of an EU project (CHATT) for which Cenaero was active in the optimisation of a manufacturing process for a composite hydrogen tank for the space industry.