1. EADS - CASA HANGARS GETAFE (SPAIN)

2. Hangars are very singular buildings in airports and airplane factories. Their purpose is to contain inside one or more planes to be repaired or to be built. Hangars ( use ):

3. BUILDING: Hangars can´t have any pilars or walls in the main working area and they have to keep a huge empty floor surface. That is possible thanks to a very special structure in the lateral walls and on the roof of the hangar, which has to be very accurate and calculated by engineers in order not to fall down. Building characteristics. In addition, they have to be very high, because the tail of the planes has also to fit in. To close the hangar there are very large sliding doors which are moved by engines over railroads. The top of the door is hold on a very special beam called "The upwind beam", which also holds the roof.

4. In Getafe, we are so lucky to have the new Investigation and Development Center EADS CASA, which has a lot of facilities that can harbour planes as big as an Airbus A 330.

5. Airbus A 330, Getafe

7. FACILITIES These hangars are equipped with all the necessary services, incluiding auxiliary workshops, logistic area, offices for the designing and production engineering staff, customers area, authorities area…

8. ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY ARCHITECTURE EADS CASA has been built so that pollution and the energy needed is as low as possible. For that reason they have used three systems, some of them actually new and fresh, which we are going to explain below. The use of geothermic energy with thermoactive foundations. The use of flexible solar panels of 400Kw. The use of wastewater with an acuatic garden.

9. 1- The thermoactive foundations. The first designed system is the use of the thermoactive foundations to take geothermic energy available in the subsoil of Getafe. This system is based on the use of geothermic heat pumps which heat the floor and the hangar at a constant temperature of 16-18 ºC without important variations during the year in Getafe. The way to get the heat from the subsoil is by using the water flowing through a system of underground pipes which are 100 or 150 metres deep.

10. 2- Flexible solar panels. These facilities have a very big number of solar panels which can develop a top power of about 400 Kw. This means 5% of the total energy needs of EADS CASA Factory in Getafe.

11. 3- Water depuration through an acuatic garden. The factory was built near wetlands which are used for a natural water depuration system. They have autoctonal plants from the Iberian Peninsula which together with similar subtropical plants can generate an extremely powerful natural water depuration system. Thanks to these efficient systems developed at the Investigation and Development Center EADS CASA it has been possible to reduce air pollution.