Handled by the Materalia centre, the COMAC project aims at developing a diagnostic platform for composite pieces of aeroplanes. An innovative SME in Lorraine, Visuol Technologies bets on this project in order to develop its optical control systems. "We are the Hansel and Gretel of the project" puts forward, with modesty, Gérard Baseotto, CEO of Visuol Technologies. The company from Metz is one of the partners of the COMAC* project. Handled by the Matéralia centre, COMAC (Optimised Multi-technical Control of Composite Aeorostructures) has the ambition of developing a platform making it possible to rapidly diagnose the state of a plane's composite pieces (aerofoils, fuselage, reinforcing elements…). Intended for airports, this tool will bring together several DNC techniques within a single portable equipment : shearography, thermography, infrared, ultrasonic, deflectometry… The latter is at the heart of the offering of the company, directed by Gérard Baseotto. An optical technique, deflectometry is based on "the reflection of an image by the image to be measured". Its principles are exploited by Visuol Technologies in order to develop surface measurement and control instruments. "They make it possible to detect accidents and material defects, to highlight an incipient break or a structural weakness", completes the entrepreneur. From the link of a watch bracelet to the wing of a wide-bodied aircraft… these properties interest numerous sectors: automobile, aeronautics, semiconductors, luxury industry, watchmaking, medical (prostheses and implants) or even ophthalmic lens. Boeing, Airbus, Daimler, McLaren, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Renault, Honda, Saint-Gobain and Essilor are today among the business' references. Supported by OSEO, Visuol Technologies is an "R&D oriented company". Its flagship technology, baptised Ondulo and marketed since 2001, was thus born from a transfer of technologies from research carried out at CNAM. Today still, the business maintains close links with the research world : "There is always at least one thesis student on our premises," jokes Gérard Baseotto. Here the COMAC project will mobilise "2 engineers for 3 years". This investment should make it possible for Visuol to position itself on the non-destructive testing of composites market, " a large goldmine as far as turnover is concerned ". This large goldmine will lead to the SME increasing its team by half, counting a dozen people, in 2 or 3 years. And to conclude, the "Hansel and Gretel" : "We are very happy today at the crossroads."

 

* COMAC associates in addition SLCA (SAFRAN group), the Welding Institute, the Plasturgy Centre of the East, the Loria and the Trèfle laboratory (Transfers Flows Fluids Energy, Bordeaux).

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