The Stokes Institute has been active in aircraft heat transfer since 2003, led by Dr David Newport. 

Direct industrial funding has been received from Airbus France and Airbus UK to undertake projects in composite wing compartments examining leading edge, fuel tank, horizontal tail plane (HTP) and vertical tail plane (VTP) compartments.  The objective of this work is to improve thermal modelling of heat transfer in composite structures, and to provide thermal design solutions in confined ventilated and non-ventilated compartments.  The Institute has also provided experimental data for the validation of thermal models of the A380 wing pylon, subsequently used for certification of the Airbus A380 Super Jumbo

Two IRCSET-Airbus Enterprise Partnership PhD studentships are running at the Institute:

1. Transient convection in wing box compartments

2. Optimisation of Ventilating Leading Edge Compartment Holes

The Institute is also involved in the FP7 Aeronautics Integrated Project “MAAXIMUS”, playing a key role in thermal analysis of aircraft barrel design. The aim of MAAXIMUS (More Affordable Aircraft structure through eXtended, Integrated, & Mature nUmerical Sizing) is to demonstrate the fast development and right-first-time validation of a highly-optimised composite airframe.  The project is co-ordinated by Airbus and involves 58 partners from industry, research and academia.  The project began in April 2008 and Stokes involvement will run for three years.