The aerospace industry along with other mega industries is under an ever increasing to conscientiously mitigate its environmental impacts whilst aiming to add value. Materials used in aerospace manufacturing are key to these ambitions.

The industry currently deploys a lot of 3D sandwich structures such as lightweight aramid honeycomb core composites and carbon fibre reinforced polymer based, which are sourced primarily from fossil resources. Benefits such as high strength to weight ratios, commendable performance in operating environments make them hard to replace.

These materials are not designed to be effectively reused, recycled or recover the constituent materials to create the structures again, and end up in landfills or are incinerated. This makes these materials a colossal impediment in the sustainable aerospace dreams of the industry.

This project addresses this dire dual need of developing high performing 3D sandwich structures for aerospace which are alternatives to fossil sourced sandwich structures and have a sustainable and circular system. Inspiration and materials as well are sought in near perfect nature & hierarchical composites occurring in biological systems. Expected outcomes are 3D sandwich structures and their manufacturing systems for aerospace applications, designed in accordance with principles of eco-design.