2021 ANNUAL
REPORT

Established in 2019, the EGCERSIS joint laboratory (French acronym for Crisis Management Training in Environments Representative of Sensitive Industrial Sites) brings together the Industrial Engineering Center and two companies, Immersive Factory and Report One, which, together with the Occitanie region, finance this research and study how virtual reality can contribute to crisis management training.
The project entered its third phase this year, which focuses on a more ambitious scenario and marks the project’s advancement on a technical and structural level. The scenario is that of a multi-site terrorist attack, which includes a fire in Albi cathedral and a shooting at IMT Mines Albi. EGCERSIS relies on 4 functional modules:

• Exercise Context: the players’ (firefighters, police) immersion in virtual reality in replicas of the two crisis sites and their ability to perform their actions;
• Exercise Animation: configuration environment for the scenarios, prior to and during the exercises, by the game master based on the players’ progress;
• Exercise Decision: virtual reality crisis cell, supported by decision support software (R-IO Suite);
• Exercise Analytics : the exercise tracking module, it uses interactive dashboards to analyze players’ performance indicators and their learning from exercise to exercise.

Please view this video to discover the results.

Destination Moon: launch of the ISRU (In Situ Resource Utilization) topic

SpaceShip FR, a European project coordinated by ESA, the European Space Agency, aims to develop research resources and test technology on Earth to prepare for the return of astronauts to the moon. With the participation of Jean-Jacques Favier, former astronaut and the school’s professor emeritus, ICA-A is lending its expertise in lunar additive manufacturing to ISRU (In Situ Resource Utilization) research being developed by CNES in this area. The goal is to give astronauts on the moon the possibility to create or repair parts using only the resources available, lunar regolith and solar energy, thanks to a lunar additive manufacturing process specially designed by laboratories like ICA-Albi.

Quality 4.0: 4.0 inspection of industrial parts

In 2016, ICA-Albi and DIOTA established a joint research laboratory called “Inspection 4.0” dedicated to the control and inspection of complex mechanical parts or structures using 2D/3D vision. The two partners first worked on the problem of compliance testing, which involves verifying that a mechanical part or assembly is compliant with their CAD model. At the start of 2020, they expanded their collaboration to include damage control with the DECADOM project. In 2021, the work for this project focused mainly on implementing the robotic damage control solution, based on a cobot equipped with a 3D scanner.

Composites recycling

As part of the joint MARVAPOL laboratory project initiated with the RAPSODEE Center, UMR CNRS 5302, Alpha Recyclage and ICA-Albi in 2017, ICA-Albi is developing the use of recycled carbon fibers in composites through studies to characterize the mechanical properties of recycled fibers and understand the effect of recycling conditions on their properties.
The OPTICARB project (focused on the optimization of recycled non-woven carbon fibers for manufacturing tools, particularly molds, in nautical construction), involving Alpha Recyclage Composites and Multiplast, was launched in March 2021, with support from the Mer Méditerrannée and Bretagne Atlantique clusters. It focuses optimizing recycled non-woven carbon fibers for use in the production of composite tooling for nautical construction.

Low-carbon industry

Transitioning to low-carbon industry, particularly in the air transport sector, represents a major challenge at the beginning of this century. The transition to low-carbon air transport requires replacing kerosene with a new energy vector, hydrogen, which is the most promising fuel for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, several remaining constraints hinder the use of this energy vector, which is what ICA-Albi has committed to address through several actions:

• the recovery plan with Airbus, which studies the fundamental mechanisms of the plastic deformation of metallic materials in a hydrogen environment at cryogenic temperatures;
• the lightening of storage devices embedded in aircraft through the study of the sealing of tanks made of polymer and composite materials;
• in parallel with, and as part of the support for the start-up Hycco, on the development of bipolar plates made of composite materials for hydrogen applications, by studying the role of compaction on the impregnation of fibrous reinforcements.

• SOLUTEC

RAPSODEE Center (UMR CNRS 5302) is helping Eco-Tech Ceram, a growing SME, develop recovery and storage systems for waste heat from industrial processes.
In addition to the economic issues, this new process addresses ecological issues by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by reducing fossil fuel consumption.

• SOLSTICE

The SOLSTICE (Solar sciences, technologies and innovations for energy conversion) laboratory of excellence was renewed for a five-year period.
As an official partner, the center provides its expertise on high-temperature solar receivers, with the aim of developing high efficiency solar thermal, thermochemical and photovoltaic systems to meet the demand for heat, electricity and fuels for future societies.

• ONOMATOPÉ

Funded by the STAE Foundation (Science and Technology for Aeronautics and Space), the ONOMATOPE project, which stands for the development of new aeronautical foams with optimized elasto-plastic performance, aims to develop new thermoplastic foams using a continuous foaming process with extrusion assisted by supercritical CO2.
This study is being conducted by IRT Saint-Exupéry, which will rely on 2 laboratories in the Occitanie region: the IMT Mines Albi RAPSODEE Center and the dynamic team from the ICA-ISAE-Supaéro structures.

• MINAUMET Chair

The MINAUMET Chair, in partnership with Mines Paris Tech and VALE NC, contributes to improving the science and technology used to characterize deposits, guide mining operations and process the minerals.