Mechanics and Materials

Improve the performance of your products, deploy new technologies and support the energy transition

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Given the many challenges facing businesses, innovation is more necessary than ever. Innovating to improve the performance, safety, robustness and efficiency of products, but also to reduce the environmental footprint of different industries.  

ALTEN has developed a mechanical and materials offer based on new technologies and the integration of green energy into the industrial sector. We help our customers to optimise their products in a design space that is often highly constrained, by helping them to converge on the best compromise, satisfying performance objectives that are very often in competition with each other.  ALTEN makes available to its customers its perfect mastery of traditional engineering methods combined with the targeted use of cutting-edge technologies to develop more efficient products with shorter time-to-market cycles. Thanks to continuous multi-industry capitalisation, we deploy best practice and expertise in the aeronautics, space, automotive, rail and engine sectors. 

Designing cutting-edge products while ensuring continuous improvement in design processes, methods and tools

Working methods in the mechanical engineering sector are undergoing radical change. The ongoing development of IT capacity and cross-disciplinary skills, such as data and modelling, is leading companies to adopt a systematic approach to continuous improvement. Alongside this methodical change, manufacturers must continually improve their products, to make them more efficient, more economical, greener, etc.  

Mechanical engineering is a field that cuts across many industrial sectors. ALTEN develops cutting-edge solutions for mechanical design, structural calculation and sizing, thermal and fluid calculations and materials science, and provides you with its multi-sector expertise to guarantee the performance of your products and your organisation. We are committed to inventing new solutions that will best serve your business and optimise your products. 

Advising – Conceptualising – Developing – Optimising

Our expertise

Advice on setting up new design processes

Objective: to define and improve design processes 

In the consulting phase, ALTEN helps you define the processes, methods and tools that will enable you to design your products.   

This work takes a variety of forms, including helping to define technical approaches, supporting the development of new methods, or creating and optimising design tools.   

The ALTEN teams can also help you through these changes by providing training and operational support for these new methods and tools.  

Reference

Design process automation 

ALTEN supports one of its customers in the automation of design processes. The project has a number of objectives:   

  • To reduce the workload on engineers during the design phase, in particular by automating tasks with little technical added value 
  • To maximise the re-use of existing parts and reduce production costs 
  • To develop decision-making tools 

Conceptualising future products

Objective: to innovate and define the products of tomorrow

During the concept and architecture phases, ALTEN supports you in defining your products and helps you meet the challenges of your sector. Whether it’s decarbonising aviation, designing factories or defining satellite constellations, ALTEN has the expertise to guide you through your projects.  

Reference

Integration of hydrogen tanks in aircraft

The ALTEN teams in Germany, UK, France, Spain and Romania support customers in their research and innovation work related to the decarbonisation of aeronautics.

Among the main projects, we are investing alongside AIRBUS and the DGAC in the STOHYC (Cryogenic Hydrogen Storage) project to define the best solution for integrating hydrogen tanks in future aircraft. This incorporates the storage and safety constraints associated with taking cryogenic liquids on board aircraft.

 Developing today’s products

Objective: to design products for cutting-edge industries down to the last detail 

ALTEN supports you in the development of your products. 

Reference

Product design for the automotive industry 

ALTEN supports major automotive manufacturers in their efforts to electrify vehicles by designing a wide range of equipment such as battery packs, inverters and electric motors.

Product optimisation

Objective: to improve existing products to optimise their performance

During the production life cycle, ALTEN supports you in optimising your existing products: improving production costs and speed, maintainability or ecological sustainability.

The ALTEN teams have knowledge of the entire life cycle of products, from their design to their manufacture and use in service. For these optimisation phases, ALTEN is able to deploy “design to value” methods and multiphysics approaches in order to define the best multi-criteria optimisation compromise.

Reference

Serial monitoring of the aircraft fleet of a major European manufacturer

A customer asked ALTEN to improve the propulsion system for its aircraft fleets. This applies to products such as engine struts and nacelles.