Discover... ISAE-SUPAERO’s experimental bench!

The Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) machine allows the Department of Mechanics of Structures and Materials (DMSM) to design and qualify parts obtained by additive manufacturing processes. The department sets up instrumentation to improve part quality and process reliability. This year has seen the start of research work, supported by the Occitanie region, on the instrumentation and monitoring of the LMD process. The activity step up in 2023 with the start of projects on the repair of high added value aeronautical parts and the development of multi-materials.

The EMpEROR platform was born on the one hand, from the increasing consideration of aeroelastic phenomena in modern aeronautics, and on the other hand, from the synergy between the Aerodynamics, Energetics, and Propulsion (DAEP) and Structural Mechanics and Materials (DMSM) departments.
This platform has been designed and thought out to allow great modularity of metrology, around a rotor bench allowing to rotate from 1 to 6 blades, up to 1 meter in diameter, from 0 to 3000 rpm, and this in complete safety thanks to a 6-meter-long protective cage. It is equipped with several sensors for performance measurements, but also with a rotating vibrometry system for measuring the dynamics of the blades (this system is only used by two laboratories in Europe). The bench also makes it possible to embed measurement systems in the blades, but also in the coming months, systems to control these unstable phenomena.
Since 2020, this platform has also enabled two thesis students to work on aeroelastic phenomena, as well as 6 Master’s students. This platform also makes it possible to generate experimental databases used by ISAE-SUPAERO researchers to compare and validate their computer codes.
The equipment will increase in power in 2024 with the addition of the possibility of making Laser measurements, of the PIV or/and LDV type, as well as the possibility of manufacturing more complex blades with the hand on the flexibility of these.

The “Autonomous Systems” Platform gathers the various tools and means, both software and robotics, provided by the DISC technical team to the researchers of ISAE-SUPAERO. This platform is composed of an evolution area of 10 × 10 × 4 m equipped with a motion capture system, where various mobile ground or air robots can move, as well as a dozen of development and control stations.
This evolution area has a modular semi-urban environment that can be modified according to the different projects or tests to be carried out. The platform is used for the development of demonstrators allowing to highlight the various research projects of the ISAE-SUPAERO researchers, as well as for teaching through practical works which are carried out initially in simulation, then on the real robots.