Commercial aviation is a vital part of the United States economy. It generates over $1 trillion annually, which is more than 5% of the U.S. GDP, and produces approximately 10 million jobs. Every year there is an increase in commercial air traffic. This is attributed to expanding trade between states and other countries, which requires larger amounts of cargo aircraft in operation, and also catering to the growing number of middle and upper class passengers who travel for business and pleasure purposes. A rise in commercial aviation leads to the use of more aviation fuel on a monthly and annual basis. This in turn leads to escalated levels of combustion by-products from jet and turbofan engines into the atmosphere. The negative effects of these by-products range from producing poor air quality and consequent health hazards to contributing to global warming. This study is aimed at assessing the impacts of aircraft emissions on the local air quality in Corpus Christi using the Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System. Flight data for the study was obtained from the Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration. Analyses of the emissions were compared on monthly, annual, engine type and airline provider bases. Climatic, economic and anthropogenic factors were identified in the analyses.

The continuous growth in flight operations has led to public concern regarding the impact of aviation on the environment with its anthropogenic contribution to global warming. Several solutions have been proposed in order to reduce the environmental impact of aviation. However most of them are long term solutions such as new environmental friendly aircraft and engine designs. In this respect, management of aircraft trajectory and mission is a potential short term solution that can readily be implemented. Therefore, in order to truly understand the optimised environment friendly trajectories that can be actually deployed by airlines, it is important to investigate the impact of degraded engine performance on real aircraft trajectories at multi-disciplinary level. Several trajectory optimisation studies have been conducted in this direction in the recent past, but engines considered for the studies were clean and trajectories were ideal and simple. This research aims to provide a methodology to enhance the conventional approach of the aircraft trajectory optimisation problem by including engine degradation and real aircraft flight paths within the optimisation loop (framework); thereby the impact of engine degradation on optimum aircraft trajectories were assessed by quantifying the difference in fuel burn and emissions, when flying a trajectory which has been specifically optimised for an aircraft with degraded engines and flying a trajectory which has been optimised for clean engines. For the purpose of this study models of a clean and two levels of degraded engines have been developed that are similar to engines used in short range and long range aircraft currently in service. Degradation levels have been assumed based on the deterioration levels of Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) margin. Aircraft performance models have been developed for short range and long range aircraft with the capability of simulating (generating) vertical and horizontal flight profiles provides by the airlines. An emission prediction model was developed to assess NOx emissions of the mission. The contrail prediction model was adopted from previous studies to predict contrail formation. In addition, a multidisciplinary aircraft trajectory optimisation framework was developed and employed to analyse short range flight trajectories between London and Amsterdam and long range flight trajectories between London and Colombo under three cases. Case_1: Aircraft with clean engines, Case_2 and Case_3 were Aircraft with two different levels of degraded engines having a 5% and 10% Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) increase respectively. Three different multi objective optimisation studies were performed; (1) Fuel burn vs Flight time, (2) Fuel burn vs NOx emission, and (3) Fuel burn vs Contrails. Finally optimised trajectories generated with degraded engines were compared with the optimised trajectories generated with clean engines ... [cont].

Combustion emissions from aviation operations contribute significantly to climate change and air pollution. Accordingly, there is increasing interest in advancing battery-powered propulsion for aviation applications to reduce emissions. As batteries continue to improve, it is essential to recognize breakthroughs in battery specific energy in the context of air transport vehicles. Most electric aircraft designs and programs have focused on small aircraft because of restrictive battery performance. This work presents a feasibility assessment for an all-electric airliner based on an Airbus A220-100 with turbofan engines replaced by electric motors and propellers. The analysis compares the performance characteristics of the electric airliner to the A220-100 and establishes several configurations with varying battery pack-specific energy. The short-term electric airliner could replace conventional aircraft on very short, high-density missions. In contrast, the long-term electric airliner requires significant battery technology improvements that are not currently foreseen. The alternative long-term electric airliner could complete half of the A220-100’s missions, but the necessary specific energy value is also not anticipated shortly. All-electric airliners would significantly impact manufacturing, operations, costs, and emissions but are commercially infeasible with current battery technology. Additional development of more advanced battery technology is required to increase the specific energy of battery packs, enhance battery safety and reliability, and develop lighter high-power electric motors.

The interdisciplinary research project AviClim (Including Aviation in International Protocols for Climate Protection) has explored the feasibility for including aviation’s full climate impact, i.e., both long-lived CO2 and short-lived non-CO2 effects, in international protocols for climate protection and has investigated the economic impacts. Short-lived non-CO2 effects of aviation are NOx emissions, H2O emissions or contrail cirrus, for instance. Four geopolitical scenarios have been designed which differ concerning the level of international support for climate protecting measures. These scenarios have been combined alternatively with an emissions trading scheme on CO2 and non-CO2 species, a climate tax and a NOx emission charge combined with CO2 trading and operational measures (such as lower flight altitudes). Modelling results indicate that a global emissions trading scheme for both CO2 and non-CO2 emissions would be the best solution from an economic and environmental point of view. Costs and impacts on competition could be kept at a relatively moderate level and effects on employment are moderate, too. At the same time, environmental benefits are noticeable.

Sustainable aviation fuels are one of the proposals that the aviation industry is adopting to reduce its impact on the environment. These are obtained by applying chemical processes to biological and non-biological resources, and their main objective is to replace conventional (fossil-derived) aviation fuel in their entirety. There are currently seven approved production pathways and two co-processing processes. Understanding the real impact of these fuels on the amount of emissions produced by an aircraft along a trajectory is essential to further develop sustainable proposals and regulations. So to understand how the use of these fuels affects total emissions, the model developed by Boeing to estimate aircraft emissions has been adapted to sustainable aviation fuels using the Lower Heating Value as a proposal throughout this project. The methodology has been applied to a real flight between Stockholm Airport and Bordeaux Airport. Four different scenarios, characterized by varying fuel blends, have been studied: exclusive use of kerosene, 10% sustainable fuel blend, an equal 50% blend of each fuel, and sustainable fuel only. The analysis has been performed for five different types of non-conventional fuels; Shell FT-SPK, Sasol FT-SPK, UOP HEFA-SPK, Coconut HEFA-SPK and Hevo ATJ-SPK. At large, two trends have been detected in the effect of these fuels on total emissions; some types of SAF have increased CO and HC emissions and reduced NOx emissions compared to kerosene, and others whose behavior has been the reverse. In addition, the percentage of fuel used has an impact on total emissions. It can be concluded that no non-conventional fuel type among those studied has been found to produce a reduction in all types of emissions, however, given that their life cycle is circular, they do contribute to making the aviation sector more sustainable by reducing CO2. The results can help to better understand the impact of this type of fuel, as well as provide valuable information for decision-making in the implementation of sustainable strategies in the aviation industry. / Hållbara flygbränslen är en av de förslag som flygindustrin antagit för att minska sin påverkan på miljön. Dessa bränslen framställs genom att tillämpa kemiska processer på biologiska och icke-biologiska resurser, och deras främsta mål är att helt ersätta konventionellt (fossilbaserat) flygbränsle. För närvarande finns det sju godkända produktionsvägar och två sambehandlingsprocesser. För att förstå den verkliga påverkan av dessa bränslen på mängden utsläpp som produceras av ett flygplan längs en bana är det nödvändigt att vidareutveckla hållbara förslag och regler. För att förstå hur användningen av dessa bränslen påverkar totala utsläpp har modellen utvecklats av Boeing för att uppskatta flygutsläpp anpassats till hållbara flygbränslen genom att använda lägre värmevärde som förslag i hela detta projekt. Metoden har tillämpats på en verklig flygning mellan Stockholms flygplats och Bordeaux flygplats. Fyra olika scenarier, karakteriserade av varierande bränsleblandningar, har studerats: enbart användning av flygbränsle, 10% hållbar bränsleblandning, en jämn fördelning av 50% av varje bränsle, och enbart hållbart bränsle. Analysen har utförts för fem olika typer av icke-konventionella bränslen; Shell FT-SPK, Sasol FT-SPK, UOP HEFA-SPK, Coconut HEFA-SPK och Hevo ATJ-SPK. Generellt sett har två trender observerats beträffande dessa bränsles effekter på totala utsläpp; vissa typer av hållbara bränslen har ökat CO- och HC-utsläppen och minskat NOx-utsläppen jämfört med flygbränsle, medan andra har haft motsatt beteende. Dessutom har procentandelen bränsle som används en påverkan på totala utsläpp. Det kan dras slutsatsen att ingen av de studerade icke-konventionella bränsletyperna har visat sig minska alla typer av utsläpp. Men med tanke på att deras livscykel är cirkulär bidrar de till att göra flygsektorn mer hållbar genom att minska CO2. Resultaten kan hjälpa till att bättre förstå denna typ av bränsles påverkan och tillhandahålla värdefull information för beslutsfattande vid införandet av hållbara strategier inom flygindustrin.