A Process for the Quantification of Aircraft Noise and Emissions Interdependencies

• Main Author: de Luis, Jorge
• Published: Georgia Institute of Technology 2008
• Subjects: BADA and SAE AIR 1845; Environmental policy making; Interdependencies; Airplanes; Noise; Environmental impact analysis; Aircraft exhaust emissions
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1853/24618

The main purpose of this dissertation is to develop a process to improve actual policy-making procedures in terms of aviation environmental effects. This research work expands current practices with physics based publicly available models. The process herein proposed provides information regarding the interdependencies between the environmental effects of aircraft. These interdependencies are also tied to the actual physical parameters of the aircraft and the engine, making it more intuitive for decision-makers to understand the impacts to the vehicle due to different policy scenarios. These scenarios involve the use of fleet analysis tools in which the existing aircraft are used to predict the environmental effects of imposing new stringency levels. The aircraft used are reduced to a series of coefficients that represent their performance, in terms of flight characteristics, fuel burn, noise, and emissions. These coefficients are then utilized to model flight operations and calculate what the environmental impacts of those aircraft are. If a particular aircraft does not meet the stringency to be analyzed, a technology response is applied to it, in order to meet that stringency. Depending on the level of reduction needed, this technology response can have an effect on the fuel burn characteristic of the aircraft. The proposed alternative is to create a fleet of replacement aircraft to the current fleet that does not meet stringency. These replacement aircraft represent the achievable physical limits for state of the art systems. In addition, the replacement aircraft show the linkage between environmental effects and fundamental aircraft and engine characteristics, something that has been neglected in previous policy making procedures. Another aspect that has been ignored is the creation of the coefficients used for the fleet analyses. In current literature, a defined process for the creation of those coefficients does not exist, but this research work develops a process to do so and demonstrates that the characteristics of the aircraft can be propagated to the coefficients and to the fleet analysis tools.