JPA D ESIGN
F1 AND SUPERSONIC
It’s not every year an interior design business gets to work with F1 engineers
and a supersonic start-up, but that’s just what JPA Design has been doing in
2019 in pursuit of greater technical solutions for all its aviation customers
I
n April the London, Singapore
and Dubai-based agency, JPA
Design, announced a formal
partnership with Williams Advanced
Engineering – a division of the Williams
Group famous for its F1 team – to
co-develop composites for use in
aircraft cabins.
“There’s a prestige in working with
a brand such as Williams, which not
only helps us, but also the brands and
companies we work with,” JPA principal,
James Park begins. “But the exciting thing
for us is getting a further development
of our monocoque seat to market,
and working with Williams gives us
the opportunity to really bring some
fresh thinking.”
F1 THINKING
Of course, big budget solutions aren’t
necessarily applicable to everyday
commercial aviation, but Park says part
of the reason for the partnership – which
has the UK government’s Aerospace
Technology Institute (ATI) backing – is
to come up with less expensive options
with wider applications.
“A lot of what Williams Advanced
Engineering does is to make F1
technology more accessible,” continues
Park, “delivering huge benefits, but at
a much lower cost.”
A good example of such aviationrelevant
know-how is Williams Advanced
Engineering’s patented 223 technology,
where a two-dimensional component is
shipped flat and subsequently formed into
a 3D part onsite (hence the tech’s name,
‘223’), reducing distribution and final
assembly costs.
Williams Advanced Engineering already
uses the flat-pack style approach to
create racing battery boxes, but Park
sees aviation opportunities in seats,
side consoles, front-row monuments,
lavatories and even overhead bins.
“When you get to the final assembly
point you simply fold it, heat it, and it
becomes a part,” enthuses JPA’s London
managing director, Ben Orson. “Typically
aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
052 ANNUAL SHOWCASE 2020
“The monocoque product we created
for Singapore Airlines, now in flight, freed
up a great deal of additional space beneath
the seat, which provided more room for
luggage,” Orson explains. “This in turn
allowed the airline to remove all the bins
from the middle of the aircraft, resulting
in significant weight reductions. The void
underneath the seat would normally have
been occupied by the seat legs, but we
were able to open this up to accommodate
a full-size trolley bag and laptop case. The
use of composite enables us to put the
seat legs where we want them as opposed
1
in the previous process to get a clean
corner you’d have to join two parts with
a dovetail joint, add adhesive and filler,
grind it back and eventually get something
that’s approaching flat. With the new
approach, the composite fibres wrap
around the corners so you don’t get the
extra weight and certification issues
inherent in manually applying glue
and filler. It’s got great potential.”
JPA is also looking to use more
composites in the primary load areas
of aircraft seats to reduce weight and
create greater under-seat storage.
/aircraftinteriorsinternational.com