Address

ATT advanced thermal technologies GmbH
Gewerbeparkstraße 77, Top 5
8143 Dobl-Zwaring
Austria

ATT advanced thermal technologies

ATT engineers, industrializes and produces tailor-made smart surface systems based on proprietary technology and novel materials. Founded 2014 in Graz, ATT has today 20 employees, a manufacturing capacity of 200.000 m² p.a. and an R&D quota of 25 %. The product range comprises ATT Powerfilm ® surface heating elements, ATT Powersense ® foil-based sensor technology and ATT Powerlogic ® control electronics.

ATT Powerfilm ® technology will mainly be used within JOICE. With the technology surface heating elements capable to generate extremely high heating power densities (up to 100 kW/m²) can be engineered, while being lightweight (200 g/m²) and flexible to mount on complex surfaces. Film based layer setup (from 100 µm total thickness) allow for integration without the need of significant installation space, making ATT Powerfilm ® heating elements perfectly suited for aerospace or automotive industries where weight and space are crucial. The heating foils are manufactured in a cost-effective additive process (flatbed screen printing), the use of novel materials (carbon- and silver-filled conductive inks) with a strong PTC effect (positive temperature coefficient) at defined temperature allows for the design of thermally stable, self-regulating heating elements. Therefore, complex sensing and electronics for temperature control and overheat protection can be omitted, allowing for significant cost and weight savings potential of the overall system. Finally, ATT Powerfilm ® surface heating elements are mechanically and thermally robust and therefore suited for numerous subsequent manufacturing or integration processes, such as lamination into CRP/GFRP structures, autoclave process or even film insert molding and back injection molding.

ATT Powersense ® thin-film sensing technologies allow for temperature measurement, capacitive touch or vicinity sensing, the detection of water or ice on surfaces as well as the determination of fill levels, chemicals or impurities in tanks or vessels.

ATT Powerlogic ® summarizes all electronics and control algorithms for processing signals form ATT Powersense ® sensing elements and smart control of ATT Powerfilm ® surface heating elements. ATT offers fully integrated solutions of combined ATT Powerfilm ® / Powersense ® smart surface systems and the corresponding power supply and ATT Powerlogic ® control electronics.

Role in the project

WP 3 – Numerical methods
  • ATT is designing electro-thermal surface heating elements for integration into the 2D / 3D wing mockups
  • Heated area will be divided into different heating loops to be individually controlled by the operator to allow for local variations in heating power per area, increasing the number if variables to be investigated during generation of validation data in wind tunnel testing
  • Integration of the heating foils directly into the wing’s structure by lamination in glass fibre reinforced plastic
WP 4 – Ice detection and ice protection systems
  • Design, manufacturing, and integration of electro-thermal runback zone de-icing system for hybrid wing ice protection system
  • The layout is guided by ATT’s simulation environment (in house built 2D / quasi-3D electro-thermal FEM code)