ICA A "Assessment of the Air Transport System"

The objective for ICA A is to design, analyse, and evaluate alternative transition pathways in order to achieve long-term development goals for the ATS. The assessment will be based on a scientifically sound development and application of a multi-method mix, integrating scenario analysis, multi-scale modelling and simulation, life-cycle engineering, noise assessment, as well as multi-criteria and robust optimisation. Methods are developed to enable the design of a basket of technological, operational, and legislative measures on the level of single technologies, aircraft, and airports. Finally, they will allow for an assessment of effectiveness and efficiency of the complete ATS related to the achievement of economic, ecological, and social goals.

Second Project Phase (2023-2025)

The project STENOS aims at providing a high-level understanding of the air transport system with the help of simulation and policy analysis by assessing the interdependencies between the components of the system. The future scenarios pertaining to different business strategies of aircraft manufacturing and fuel production firms, and potential policies that promote the adoption of new emissions reducing technologies will be analyzed. The study will be conducted by using a combination of system dynamics and agent-based simulation modeling techniques to promote a sound understanding of the systems’ behavior

A1.2

In order to develop sustainable, environmentally friendly and safe air traffic, a technology-neutral and forward-looking legal system is required. But is our legal system ready to achieve these goals or do we not rather have to create new regulations?

To answer these questions EvAir will firstly evaluate the applicable law in its complex multi-level system (national, European and international). With this approach, it can first be established to what extent the applicable law already serves the sustainable development of the air transport system.

A1.3

The application of wave-resolving vibroacoustic models for passenger cabin noise predictions during early design stages allows assessing new technology and aircraft configurations as aimed within SE²A and holds a high potential for the investigation of sound reduction measures. The further development of these wave-resolving approaches is therefore an important step in closing the design loop with regard to acoustics and potentially enabling an iterative design in the future. A major challenge is an extension of deterministic vibroacoustic models to account for a) stochastic sources (e.g. from aeroacoustics) and b) uncertain design parameters. Especially the last point often challenges an early application of wave-resolving models as the interior sound pressure level is significantly influenced by certain design parameters, which are only known much later in the design process. Moreover, incorporating uncertainties into the model predictions is crucial for model validation and comparison of simulations and experiments.

A2.3

The emission reductions necessary for reaching the ambitious target of a sustainable air traffic system requires novel aircraft concepts to enter service in the near future. Therein, the anticipated developments within aircraft technology are likely to necessitate/enable flight maneuvers and trajectories different from those employed by aircraft in service today. A significant environmental effect of the air transport system is noise, with a particular impact on communities in the vicinity of airport regions.

To fully exploit the potential of future aircraft for the reduction of the environmental impact with respect to noise on the ground, a holistic approach coupling flight physics, air traffic management, noise assessment and optimization is indispensable. Therefore, in this project existing tools for flight dynamics, air traffic management modelling and noise assessment are implemented, coupled and enclosed by an optimization procedure.

A2.4

Project ICA A3.3 will develop a decision support system for the conversion of existing airports to accommodate liquid hydrogen (LH2) refuelling systems for future LH2-powered aircraft. This process requires complex decisions regarding the specific LH2 refuelling technology, spatial allocation, and capacity planning, all while encountering demand uncertainty. Project ICA A3.3 will use algebraic optimisation models to find the optimal infrastructure investment paths over time, taking into consideration the unique operational profile and existing kerosene infrastructure of each airport. The ultimate objective of project ICA A3.3 is to develop a flexible tool that facilitates the practical adoption of economically viable LH2 refuelling technology by airports, thereby contributing to the promotion of sustainable air transportation.

A3.3

The project focuses on developing an integrated logistics simulation system with efficient communication and interface structure for three-level control. This involves developing a hinterland simulator using a multi-agent program with SUMO and defining abstraction models and interfaces between the AdAS and hinterland simulation.
The project aims to implement various coordination mechanisms between the hinterland simulator and AdAS for business and cooperation scenarios, utilizing concepts like ADMM, strategy exchange or market maker. Lastly, the combined system will undergo full testing to validate its performance, traceability of requirements and achievement of the 4-hour-door-to-door target, while identifying areas for future research.

A3.4

The project SUMAFly II aims to develop and apply life cycle sustainability assessment methods for future aircraft concepts to analyze environmental, economic, and social sustainability aspects and to support decision-making in the early stages of aircraft development. The focus of SUMAFly II is the extension of the modeling, assessment, and analysis of powertrain concepts carried out in the original SUMAFly project to the entire aircraft in all life cycle phases. For this purpose, the research program comprises the extension of existing and the development of new life cycle inventory models for innovative aircraft architectures and designs required to integrate the powertrain concepts analyzed in the primary SUMAFly project. In this context, novel materials, production processes, usage scenarios, and end-of-life routes are developed and modeled, and existing system architectures are systematically supplemented with data from SE²A. This process will accompany continuous data validation and evaluation throughout the project, and multi-level assessment models for the environmental and socio-economic analysis will be developed. In addition, new metrics for aircraft assessment based on high-level goals (e.g., planetary boundaries and sustainable development goals) and theories (e.g., doughnut economics and macroeconomics) will be developed. Finally, visualization methods for presenting and interpreting the life cycle inventories and results will be embedded to support decision-making in the early stages of aircraft development.

A4.1

First Project Phase (2019-2022)

Over the last decades, simulation has proven to be a solid approach to grasp the effects of introducing new elements into an already running system. Utilizing new electric or hydrogen-based aircraft types will lead to major changes in transportation flows and operating processes within the air transport system (ATS), airport and the hinterland resulting in optimization opportunities and potential problems. To identify the latter, the already existing simulation environment “SE²A Advanced ATS Simulation” (AdAS) will be both refined and expanded in certain areas. Refinements are needed in the area of gate assignments, which are currently not robustly planned. Secondly, to represent the novel aircraft types proposed from ICA B and ICA C in the simulation, the high-fidelity models will be reformulated and made available to the simulation environment. Furthermore, the extensions include an embedding of the ATS in a multimodal transportation system, as well as an extension to include a long-term optimal fleet planning option. With this improved simulation, environment cumulative emission reduction potentials can be computed and a detailed description of the parameter sensitivities like emissions or other ecologic, economic and socio-technical key performance indicators can take place. Last, in order to take full advantage of the sophisticated simulation environment, it is necessary to create appropriate interfaces to other software tools and at the same time to enable simulation on different scales.