at the heart of a successful major industrial project such as the a350 XWb, the latest addition to the airbus family, there are also smaller and more discreet partners, but who are nonetheless heavily involved in the “birth” of this first composite aircraft built by the European manufacturer. this is the case with Intespace and its partner DGa-techniques aéronautiques, companies specialising in environment simulation testing and located in Toulouse, the traditional home of airbus. for Intespace, over and above the 5 fascinating years of intense work on the future aircraft, this collaboration is also proof of the efficiency of its overall range of services.

from the creation of test cells, to the final static tests

For Intespace, the adventure started well before the first test on the aircraft structure. As of 2010, Airbus had selected Intespace to prepare and monitor the static tests of the A350 XWB: with its home-grown dynaWorks® software and in close collaboration with the deparents at Airbus, Intespace developed the MyTest application, an unprecedented instrumentation and real-time test monitoring system offering unparalleled measurement reliability.

Intespace, with its partner dGA-Techniques aéronautiques, was also chosen to design and build the aircraft structure test facility. This was an opportunity for Intespace to make use of its test resource engineering know-how on this facility, which performed its role for the duration of the campaign and has just been dismantled. It was in this facility that the aircraft's structure was pushed beyond its limits, under the supervision of Intespace, in order to extract the maximum amount of data before validation for its maiden flight. Airbus also entrusted Intespace with the non-destructive examination procedures on the static test specimen but also on the nosecone fatigue test cell, for which the thermal and fatigue tests are performed in the laboratories of its partner dGA-Techniques aéronautiques.

The campaign was completed last summer. The first revenue flight took place in January 2015.