As the Horizon Europe-funded pAIramid project passes its first six months, a core part of its work has already been accomplished. Work Package 1 (WP1) marked the critical starting point for achieving the project’s ambitious goal: developing lighter, smarter, and more sustainable aircraft components through artificial intelligence and advanced materials.

With aviation under pressure to decarbonise rapidly, it was the task of WP1 to establish the material, process, and data frameworks that will enable progress across the entire research and innovation pipeline, which it did while making bold choices, informed by the latest assessments in terms of environmental footprint, and life cycle analysis.

Aviation’s reliance on metals like aluminium has historically been justified by performance and weight considerations, but these materials come with significant environmental costs. Aluminium, for example, cannot be 100% recycled due to impurities and requires high energy input both in its production and reprocessing.
In contrast, advanced thermoplastic and thermoset composites offer lighter weight, improved energy efficiency during operation, and a better guarantee of consistency in their properties, thus better overall sustainability.

One of the Work Package’s priorities, therefore, was to identify and specify composite material systems tailored to each of the four demonstrator use cases in the project, considering their sustainability, reusability, and toxicity profiles, as well as propose alternatives for doping resins.

To ensure these innovative materials can be industrially adopted, WP1 also assessed the manufacturing processes best suited to each use case. IRTJV led this task, supported by INEGI, specifying the process parameters for Liquid Resin Infusion (LRI) and Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM)—two advanced techniques essential to shaping and integrating composite components in aviation structures, which resulted in detailed technical specifications that are to serve as the blueprint for future development and testing phases.

Equally important is the shift from costly, material-intensive physical testing to a more efficient, digitally enabled validation process. Led by IKERLAN, this aspect of the work included the design of a data architecture to support the project’s AI-driven tool suite. This digital infrastructure ensures that the vast quantities of performance data generated – from material selection to manufacturing trials – are managed and shared efficiently between partners. Over time, this structured data environment will also enable more accurate simulations and predictive modelling, streamlining the R&D cycle while reducing waste and cost.

Data alone, however, is not sufficient without a clear framework for measuring success. Collins Aerospace is leading the development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) tailored to each demonstrator. These indicators span mechanical material properties (such as stiffness, strength, and fatigue resistance), functional goals (like electrical and thermal conductivity), and manufacturing metrics including quality, lead time, cost, and waste. The KPI handbook developed in WP1 will inform ongoing benchmarking and guide improvements throughout the project lifecycle.

Together, these interconnected activities in WP1 create the technical and methodological backbone of the pAIramid project, and lay the foundations for the other Work Packages whose work will make the project thrive. It also represents a decisive first step towards making cleaner, smarter air travel a reality, as along with the planned full life cycle assessment to quantify these benefits, the project reaffirms its alignment with the EU’s broader climate-neutral aviation goals. By integrating material innovation, advanced manufacturing, digital workflows, and performance monitoring from the outset, WP1 not only provided the groundwork for the demonstrators ahead but also pointed to broader industrial applications in sectors like automotive and materials science – proof, if more was needed, that the innovations born out of this research represent not only a decisive first step towards making cleaner, smarter air travel a reality, but towards a new era of sustainable industry.