JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #114 - July 2017 - 32

MANUFACTURING recycling

interview

José alcorta,
Manager
Rescoll

Mr. Alcorta, you are the manager of Rescoll.
Can you give us a brief presentation of your
company?

José Alcorta: Rescoll is an SMI with
about a hundred employees that has been
working for the past twenty years or so in
material studies and testing. We have two
sites, one in Rochefort and another in Pessac
on the outskirts of Bordeaux.
More specifically, Rescoll carries out two
types of activity:
- technical innovation studies for the
purpose of developing new materials,
products, and processes, and
- laboratory analysis, testing and
characterization of these materials
and structures under a highly effective
quality management system (ISO 17025,
NADCAP NMMT, and certification from
Airbus, Dassault and General Electric,
among others).
Thanks to these two complementary
activities, we are able to offer our
manufacturer customers a broad range of
services.
What manufacturing sectors do you address?

J.A.: You might say that any manufacturing
The 3D-printed airplane is a meter
long, for an equivalent wingspan. The
IMA and VLM Robotics pooled their
human and material resources to perfect
a printing technique compatible with
both the material and the prototype
dimensions, with spectacular results:
a printing head mounted on a KUKA
robot enables movement over long distances as the molten yarn is deposited.

32

sector could require our services sooner
or later. Companies have understood that
investing today in technological innovation
turns into tomorrow's sales. Therefore, we
are led to work in sectors as different as
building & construction, transportation,
and the food industry, where the demand for
technical materials - in particular composite
materials - is growing.
However, we have developed a specific
commercial offering that targets three
business sectors where the demand for
innovation and testing of the materials they
use is high:
- Aerospace - a traditional sector that
has enabled Rescoll's development, with
an offering of material tests (notably for
composites where we are concerned) that
are certified by principals in the field.
- Medical - more precisely implantable
medical devices, a sector where we meet
increasingly stringent technical and
regulatory requirements.
- Energy - given that new types of energy like
wind, photovoltaic, fuel cell, or hydrogen
and methane storage have very strict in highperformance materials.

innovations we develop in our innovation
studies through life cycle analysis, to
verifying environmental performance under
the Environmental Technology Verification
(ETV) programme (for which Rescoll is
one of the 5-6 laboratories selected by the
European Union) and to carrying out full
studies on the recycling of materials and
their reutilization, or developing materials
from biosourced products.
To take one example, at JEC 2016, we
presented an A350 mock-up made using
additive manufacturing, and for which the
base material consisted of composite waste
from A350 parts.
What are your activities in the field of
composite materials?

J.A.: Rescoll is the result of the merger
of two companies with complementary
activities. Rescoll Pessac has significant
expertise in chemistry and formulation,
while Rescoll Rochefort is specialized in the
design, analysis and dimensioning of parts.
So, Rescoll's global offering now extends
from design to structural testing, an area
for which both sites are especially well
equipped.

And what about environmental concerns?

J.A.: Our industrial customers have
specifications that contain standard
technical and economic clauses, among
others, as well as more and more
environmental requirements. Therefore, we
have trained our teams specifically to take
these requirements into account in all of our
studies, and even in carrying out studies that
focus mainly on the environment (you have
an example in the attached article).
In this way, we gradually shifted from
quantifying the environmental impact of the

Together with our environmental expertise,
this broad offering enables us to work on
a large number of studies on composite
materials. For example, we are working on
developing biosourced matrices for Class
120 and 180 composite materials/Class 120
and 180 biosourced matrices for composite
materials for aviation specifications, and
sizing coatings for carbon fibres that can be
used in thermoplastic composites.
To learn more about our activities, you can
consult our website at www.rescoll.fr.

Ecoproducts
The WASTEcost prototype represents
real technological progress, and has
been selected as one of the innovations
on the Aerospace Planet at the JEC
trade fair on 14-16 March 2017.

Stelia Aerospace, and which will soon
be manufactured by the WASTEcost
consortium. The group would also like
to move towards an ecodesigned version
of interior cabin elements using the carbon/epoxy composite waste.

As the project's "spearhead", the prototype draws the contours of two future
ecoproducts that have been selected by

More information :
sebastien.papin@rescoll.fr
www.rescoll.fr

jec composites magazine / N°114 July 2017
http://www.rescoll.fr http://www.rescoll.fr
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #114 - July 2017
