Safran Nacelles A worldwide leader in aircraft engine nacelles and services

Safran Nacelles draws on digital technology to improve its operational efficiency.

Factory 4.0 is already a reality for Safran Nacelles. The digital transformation of our factories is a vector of performance enabling us to meet our customers’ quality, cost and lead time requirements, and to support them in their own developments. We integrate digital technologies throughout our sites, both to increase production reliability through data collected via our industrial equipment, and to assist with monitoring our products through digital continuity covering design, manufacturing and in-service maintenance.

Working together with virtual and augmented reality

Safran Nacelles’ operational excellence largely lies with its collaborative work methods based on collective intelligence. This way, we can use the real-time information sharing possibilities offered by virtual reality to reduce our development times, validate new manufacturing and assembly methods more quickly, design ergonomic tooling, optimize the location of our industrial equipment or even develop interactive training on nacelle maintenance. In Safran, we are pioneers of augmented reality and we make use of this technology to optimize the nacelles’ composite panel inspection and to assist with engine integration operations.

Safran Nacelles is behind numerous innovations for environmental and customer requirements.

Our composite materials and high-performance metallic alloys enable us to decrease the weight of our nacelles, thus reducing fuel consumption and aircraft carbon emissions. We have, amongst others, developed an expertise in Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) techniques used for Airbus A320neo and Falcon 7X/8X nacelles. We are also developing acoustic technologies that reduce noise emission by “trapping” the engine noise on strategic surface areas of the nacelle or the nozzle. This technology enabled the Airbus A380 to become one of the quietest aircraft in operation despite its size. Finally, we continuously improve our nacelles’ aerodynamics to reduce drag in flight.

NacelleLife™ supports nacelles at every stage of their life.

Many offers on the market only deal with entry into service and major services, Safran Nacelles’ NacelleLife™ service portfolio embodies the comprehensive approach that fully encompasses airlines’ requirements. Their entire aircraft life cycle is covered, from pre-entry into service to operational retirement.

The objective is to maximize availability and to minimize maintenance costs at each step of the life cycle. NacelleLife™ is supported by a network of 13 sites, reinforced by partnerships and several MRO (Maintenance, Repairs and Overhaul) centers, to ensure the proximity and the reactivity expected by our customers.

Innovative solutions

Technological innovation is at the heart of NacelleLife™ services. The mobile application “JetLife”, integrated with the programmed maintenance service, provides real-time access to service bulletins and the option to report operations carried out, thus enabling Safran Nacelles to suggest predictive maintenance schedules. “Presto”, the overheating assessment tool, uses infrared thermography to evaluate the thrust reversers composite structure’s health, enabling underwing diagnostics to be carried out without the need to dismount the nacelle, thus minimising AOG (aircraft on ground) time. All these solutions apply to the full range of our nacelles, in service and/or in development.