Contrail avoidance in the aircraft design process

Abstract

As aviation is one of the fastest growing industrial sectors world wide, air-traffic emissions are projected to increase their stake in the contribution to global warming. According to studies, both carbon dioxide and contrails are the principal air-traffic pollutants, whereas the impact from contrails in terms of radiative forcing is possibly larger than that of all other air-traffic pollutants combined. New regulations with the objective of mitigating contrail occurrences might cause a change in the design requirements of aircraft. In light of this, a method considering contrail formation during the aircraft design process is presented in this paper. Aircraft performance and optimisation is carried out with NASA’s flight optimisation system. Combining historical meteorological data with air-traffic data enables an assessment regarding contrail formation. As an example, a particular aircraft type in terms of range, speed and payload is optimised for minimum block fuel consumption considering different altitudes. The change in contrail formation in terms of contrail-km formed is calculated. The results suggest that if aircraft of the considered class were designed for higher altitudes, contrail occurrences would diminish slightly at a non-negligible fuel burn penalty.

Design of a Hydrogen Aircraft for Zero Persistent Contrails

“…Raymer's method ( 15) is a statistical model using data that "typify those used in conceptual design by the major airframe companies". All quantities in (15) are in imperial units, with the value for dynamic pressure, q, taken with density given by the Interna-…”

“…Raymer's method ( 15) is a statistical model using data that "typify those used in conceptual design by the major airframe companies". All quantities in (15) are in imperial units, with the value for dynamic pressure, q, taken with density given by the International Standard Atmosphere at a typical operating point of ~38,000 ft and Mach ~0.74. The ultimate load factor, ULF, represents the maximum load acceptable on an aircraft in units of total aircraft weight.…”

Turbo-electric distributed propulsion – opportunities, benefits and challenges

“…The International Commercial Aviation Organisation environmental report of 2013 currently assesses level of scientific understanding (and consequently the established global warming potential) of linear contrails and cirrus contrails, as low and very low, respectively. In the field of contrail research even though significant uncertainties still remain, notable progress has been made with further investigations being actively pursued (Noppel, and Singh, 2008;ICAO, 2013). Therefore, if the detrimental environmental effects of contrails were to be further established, there would then be the strong possibility of the introduction of future environmental taxation policies aimed at its mitigation.…”

Airworthiness and Conceptual Design Optimization Considerations of the Environmental Impact Assessment of a Supersonic Business Jet Aircraft

“…In general, a combination of lower speeds and cruise altitudes facilitates the mitigation of aviation related global warming [12]. Several studies [12,13,14,15] have attempted to assess the aviation climate impact and how this might influence the aircraft design criteria of typical generic or existing subsonic airliners and the novelty of the present study is that it attempts to perform an environmental assessment comparison and to look at aircraft design criteria implications of a particular SSBJ design.…”