Technical seminars to explain, inform & inspire

Aerospace Testing, Design & Manufacturing 2008 is offering a comprehensive series of free technical seminars – open to all visitors to the show.

The aim of the seminar series is to provide highly practical insights into a wide range of aerospace testing, design and manufacturing new technologies and challenges, using live case study material where possible. The programme breaks down into three broad streams. Auditorium One will feature sessions focused on design and manufacturing issues such as ALTER Technology Group Spain's Juan Barbero talking about the 'Evaluation of optoelectronic components for space applications'.  Etienne Poirier, from EADS Test & Services, will be looking at the impact of Airbus changing its OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) testing philosophy for its A350 programme; instead of focusing on equipment alone the emphasis has been shifted to the system level creating new challenges for suppliers during specification of the system and requiring them to adapt their test philosophy. Instead of pure testing of equipment hardware a verification on the system level is now required.

The emphasis in Auditorium Two is on testing, including aero NDT. Highlights include Adixen Sensistor's Mikael Ekström talking about 'Pin pointing aircraft fuel leaks in half the time' and Gunnar-Jan Olsen from the Andøya Test Center, who will be discussing 'Aerospace testing in the arctic'. Felix Schwarberg from IABG will be detailing how military transporter the A400M has been going through strict airframe fatigue testing to evaluate areas such as its service life, damage tolerance behaviour and residual strength of the airframe.

On the first day of the show (Tuesday April 15) Auditorium Three will be dedicated to technical seminars about the subject of telemetry. In one of these sessions QinetiQ's Kevin Atkins will be looking at a high integrity open-architecture Trials Control System (TCS) that supports networked testing, evaluation and training. QinetiQ has developed a TCS that integrates the complete suite of range sensors including tracking and surveillance radars, telemetry, data links and optical sensors; the design also supports network enabled range operations as well as allowing transportable configurations.

In addition to this, on day two of the show, the Society of Flight Test Engineers has organised a day of presentations from companies such as Airbus, QinetiQ, Saab Aerosystems and EADS Military to discuss various testing capabilities.

The full seminar programme is now available at www.aerospacetesting.com