Despite the multiple advantages of products remanufacturing, being widely recognised as an effective means for transitioning to a more circular economy, there is still need for improved research and experimental observations, to improve traceability and reliability of the final products from end-users’ perspectives, as well as enhanced impacts monitoring. The primary R3-Mydas objective is to develop a multi-actor framework, integrating innovative digital technologies (ML for process and quality control, marketplace, graph models for defects detection, digital twins), advanced mechatronics (AM, laser-cladding, automated disassembly/reassembly) and newly developed approaches from SSH (extended TAM/UTAUT models, ethics and legal framework), for functionally, environmentally and economically sustainable circular value chains for remanufacturing of energy goods at the factory level (Oil&Gas crankshafts – demo 1, E-vehicles batteries – demo 2, Wind turbines gearboxes – demo 3). R3-Mydas will deliver unprecedented impacts throughout the targeted value chains, as follows: up to 60% time reduction in programming for remanufacturing; up to 20% increased product quality; up to 30% rework reduction [Demo 1]; up to 30% improved detection of tiny deviations from normal behaviour; up to 50% faster anomaly localization; up to 30% increase the number of different modality data streams handled; up to 20% faster fusion process [Demo 2]; up to 99% reusage rate; -90% prevention rate; -75% lead time; up to 85% raw material savings potential [Demo 3]. The Project will deliver a marketplace associating to each remanufactured product or services/component for remanufacturing a Digital Passport-like set of information, ensuring full traceability. Finally, a dedicated training programme will be designed and delivered by EITM, targeting the Project remanufacturing value chains (100+ training hours and 100+ diverse stakeholders engaged during the Project).

Wherever moving bodies are in contact with each other, the respective materials have to show certain friction and wear (tribological) performance. These materials have to fulfil additional functionality and meet ecological, health and safety regulations too. In order to bring novel materials into products, extensive materials characterisation is required. i-TRIBOMAT aims at establishing the world first open test bed of tribological materials characterisation to support industrial innovations among European manufacturing industries and SMEs by upscaling materials to the mechanical components level. i-TRIBOMAT open test bed enables user-driven versatile characterisation of materials at reduced costs by also shortening the time-to-market ca. 5 times. i-TRIBOMAT will realize a unique bundle of shared tribological infrastructure and expertise consisting of >100 tribometers, materials characterisation equipment and additional tools for modelling, protocols, tribo-analytics, design of experiments and online monitoring. i-TRIBOMAT will establish an IT-platform for materials and tribological data harmonisation, management, analytics, sharing and mining. i-TRIBOMAT on its collaboration interface will supply lab-to-field upscaling tools by combining testing with computation, e.g., using artificial intelligence methods, virtual work rooms and surrogate models for various stakeholders, like EUMAT-platform. i-TRIBOMAT services will be validated by three industrially relevant use cases: energy efficiency (transportation), renewable energy (wind turbine) and manufacturing (seals) represented by large-, medium- and small-sized companies. i-TRIBOMAT will be THE European Single Entry Point offering intelligent Tribological Materials Characterisation to predict the durability of materials in use or novel for a wide field of industrial applications. i-TRIBOMAT is expected to cover ≥6.4 % of the dedicated market with a turnover of 9.6 M€ and EBITA objective of 600 k€/year by 2027.

The future wind turbines will require flexible and economically affordable PDPs to obtain reliable and validated new concepts for bigger wind turbines or already installed turbines. One of the most critical components that have a high contribution to wind farms OpEx costs are the bearings (selected Case Studies 1 and 3 during INNTERESTING) and gearboxes (selected Case Study 2 during INNTERESTING). Since both components transfer high loads and have high failure rates, they are considered as critical components inside the wind turbine. Although the percentage of the total Capex cost of bearings (2% ) is not as high as other structures (e.g. blades 22% and gearbox 13%) , their role is not insignificant.However, the role of bearings and gears in the OpEx is higher due to the major impact of early. The fatigue requirements that must be assured for the lifetime is a key factor to reduce the negative effect of reparations. New wind energy key concepts and uses which are faster to commercialisation have been prioritised: INNTERESTING project aims to accelerate wind energy technology development and increase lifetime extension of wind turbine components by developing a disruptive methodology to demonstrate reliability of larger wind turbine critical components without the need of building larger test-benches in the future by overcoming size dependent issues during design process and testing. In this matter, INNTERESTING project pursues the development of innovative virtual and hybrid testing methods for prototype validation of pitch bearing and gearboxes components (Selected Study Cases Components). The new methodology will help saving time and money during the product development process (PDP) by integrating virtual testing and hybrid testing: including innovative non-physical and scaled/simplified physical testing. In comparison with current methodologies INNTERESTING will reduce considerable environmental and economic impacts, and improve social acceptance.