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As a result of the increasing use of fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) components in a modern commercial aircraft, manufacturers are facing new challenges - especially with regards to the realisation of significant build rates. One challenge is the larger variation of the thickness of FRP components compared with metal parts that can normally be manufactured within a very narrow thickness tolerance bandwidth. The larger thickness variation of composite structures has an impact on the shape of the component and especially on the surfaces intended to be joined together with other components. As a result, gaps between the components to be assembled could be encountered. However, from a structural point of view, gaps can only be accepted to a certain extent in order to maintain the structural integrity of the joint. Today's state of the art technologies to close gaps between FRP structures comprise shimming methods using liquid and solid shims.

Currently, aircraft system Test Benches are often proprietary systems, specifically designed and configured for a dedicated System Under Test (SUT). Today, no standards for configuration, data communication, and data exchange formats are available for avionics Test Benches. This leads to high Test Bench development costs and redundant activities between aircraft system suppliers and airframers. In the case of obsolescence issues for test system components, it is very costly to replace the respective parts as a high integration and reconfiguration effort is required. In the scope of an R&T project, involving several test system suppliers and aircraft system suppliers as well as Airbus as an aircraft manufacturer, a generic and modular architecture for an open test environment is under development. A further goal of the Virtual and Hybrid Testing Next Generation (VHTNG) research project is to prepare a set of open standards for the interfaces to this architecture.

Virtual Testing by means of computer simulations of physical models contains a large potential for the improvement of the verification and certification process of an aircraft's high lift system. Rising system complexity (driven by the need for improved A/C efficiency) on one side and shortened development cycles on the other side lead to the need of an extension of the existing, classical test methods. This is why Airbus High Lift Test Department continuously works since a couple of years on the introduction of Virtual Testing as an additional, equivalent test means besides existing, established physical means of compliance such as Test Rigs (TR) and Real Time Simulators, the so called Functional Integration Benches (FIB).