People who live near Trudeau Airport have oft complained of the noise and researchers at Ecole Polytechnique may finally have a solution.
The school partnered with Aerospace giant Safran Group on research into a way to make planes quieter.
“We want to diminish the noise produced by aircraft,” said Polytechnique senior vice-president Francois Bertrand. “It’s still an issue and we’re getting there, but it’s never enough.”
Safran and the provincial and federal governments are contributing $15 million to the research.
“If we want to sustain the current growth that we have, which is around a four per cent increase of air transportation every year, we need to be able to put on the market new technologies to improve the level of noise of aircraft,” said Safran senior vice-president Stephane Cueille.
The problem has gotten so severe that in 2018 a Quebec judge authorized a class-action lawsuit against Trudeau Airport.
To combat this, the researchers are turning to 3D printing, working on new materials that could eventually create lighter, more efficient and quieter airplanes.
Bertrand said the goal is to make materials that absorb and dissipate noise.
“It’s a composite material and the idea is you want something that is both very tough, very hard, very rigid but at the same time, very light,” he said.
He said the materials could eventually be used in other fields such as the automotive industry or construction.
“Some of the projects will take a couple of years to produce some results. Other ones will take way more time to make it to the airplane,” he said.
