Structural power composites, a class of multifunctional materials, have significant
potential to facilitate lightweighting and accelerate widespread electrification in sustainable
transportation. In civil aircraft, a bank of supercapacitors can provide power to open the doors
in an emergency. Structural power composite fuselage components near the doors could provide
this power and eliminate the mass and volume needed for the supercapacitors. To demonstrate
this concept, we designed and manufactured a multifunctional component representative of a
fuselage rib, which powered the opening and closing of a desktop scale composite aircraft door.
This paper provides information about structural supercapacitor technology demonstrators,
discusses the fabrication of this demonstrator and concludes by providing an insight into the
future challenges that need to be addressed to realise structural power composite components.