In Modane, in Savoie, the site of the Aerospace Research Office (Onera), March 17, 2023 (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
Beneath the gray domes and tubes that pierce the Maurienne valley in Modane (Savoie) hides a little-known treasure of French industrial research: large “wind tunnels” where nuclear missiles and new, less fuel-efficient aircraft fuselages are tested. in fuel.
Saved from a collapse a few years ago, this test center of the Aerospace Research Office (Onera) reproduces continuous or gusty winds at speeds exceeding the sound barrier. It is now running at full speed with nearly full reservations for the next four to five years.
Here, models of Rafale, new reactors or wings stuffed with sensors can be exposed for hours to air currents up to Mach 12, or nearly 15,000 km / h. Purpose: to measure pressure resistance or acoustics.
The challenges of decarbonizing civil aviation, as well as the race for new military projects fueled by the war in Ukraine, have filled the order book for Modane’s wind tunnels and, more generally, that of ONERA which, upstream of the tests , conducts all kinds of research projects.
The Office thus beat its own order record in 2022, which amounted to 162.9 million euros (+7% compared to 2021) including 59 for the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) alone. and 15.6 for the General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC). About a third of the customers come from abroad, mainly from Europe but also from South Korea for example.
– “Even more essential” –
During a rare press visit organized in the heart of the S1 wind tunnel, the voices resound in a giant hose 24 meters in diameter and 400 meters long. It’s hard to imagine that here roar winds of up to Mach 1, or more than 1,000 km / h, a speed at which no human being would survive.
A wind tunnel at the Office of Aerospace Research site in Modane, Savoie, March 17, 2023 (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
S1 is one of the four wind tunnels on the Modane site. This set is considered unique in the world due to the wide range of aerodynamic tests offered, but also because it is exclusively powered by hydraulic energy, thanks to two dams.
“There is not ONE missile from the nuclear deterrent force that has not passed here”, welcomes Bruno Sainjon, director general of ONERA. “In these times when both civil and military sovereignty has regained importance, (the site) has become even more essential,” he said.
“Here we are working on the next generation (of nuclear missiles, editor’s note) with a much more complicated super ramjet, but which will allow us to go much much much faster,” he adds.
The new military programming law “forces us to go back into activity in many areas such as combat aeronautics”, explains for his part the general delegate for Armaments, Emmanuel Chiva, in one of the “veins” (corridors, editor’s note ) test. “The new Rafale standards which will have to carry different armaments must, for example, be treated in a wind tunnel”, he points out by way of example.
The different components of Scaf, the Future Air Combat System launched by France, Germany and Spain around a common aircraft, will also be tested here.
– Real versus digital –
For the DGAC, the tests focus on “how to profile the planes, to build them, to limit the sound effect that this has on local residents”, details Damien Cazé, director general of Civil Aviation.
A wind tunnel of the Aerospace Research Office (Onera), in Modane (Savoie), March 17, 2023 (AFP / JEFF PACHOUD)
In the era of supercomputers and digital simulations, the Modane center, former war booty recovered in the Austrian Alps by the Allies after 1945 and reassembled in the Maurienne valley, paradoxically finds a second wind.
“Everyone is starting to make hypersonic wind tunnels (from Mach 5, editor’s note). At some point, there are effects that we cannot simulate with the computing power and techniques that we have today today”, abounds Mr. Chiva.
“Digital is not everything, especially on new forms of aircraft (…) you have to review everything on the experimental side,” said Mr. Sainjon.
According to him, even the United States, which for a time wished to abandon this type of installation, returned to it with, in the early 2000s, a reinvestment for NASA alone estimated at 600 to 700 million dollars.
© 2023 AFP
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