TY - JOUR
T1 - Multi-objective flight altitude decision considering contrails, fuel consumption and flight time
AU - Xue, Dabin
AU - Ng, Kam K.H.
AU - Hsu, Li Ta
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: The research is supported by the Interdisciplinary Division of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR and the Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/8
Y1 - 2020/8
N2 - The rapid growth of air travel and aviation emissions in recent years has contributed to an increase in climate impact. Contrails have been considered one of the main factors of the aviation-induced climate impact. This paper deals with the formation of persistent contrails and its relationship with fuel consumption and flight time when flight altitude and true airspeed vary. Detailed contrail formation conditions pertaining to altitude, relative humidity and temperature are formulated according to the Schmidt-Appleman criterion. Building on the contrail formation model, the proposed model would minimise total travel time, fuel consumption and contrail length associated with a given flight. Empirical data (including pressure, temperature, relative humidity, etc.) collected from seven flight information regions in Chinese observation stations were used to analyse the spatial and temporal distributions of the persistent contrail formation area. The trade-off between flight time, fuel consumption and contrail length are illustrated with a real-world case. The results provided a valuable benchmark for flight route planning with environmental, flight time, sustainable flight trajectory planning and fuel consumption considerations, and showed significant contrail length reduction through an optimal selection of altitude and true airspeed.
AB - The rapid growth of air travel and aviation emissions in recent years has contributed to an increase in climate impact. Contrails have been considered one of the main factors of the aviation-induced climate impact. This paper deals with the formation of persistent contrails and its relationship with fuel consumption and flight time when flight altitude and true airspeed vary. Detailed contrail formation conditions pertaining to altitude, relative humidity and temperature are formulated according to the Schmidt-Appleman criterion. Building on the contrail formation model, the proposed model would minimise total travel time, fuel consumption and contrail length associated with a given flight. Empirical data (including pressure, temperature, relative humidity, etc.) collected from seven flight information regions in Chinese observation stations were used to analyse the spatial and temporal distributions of the persistent contrail formation area. The trade-off between flight time, fuel consumption and contrail length are illustrated with a real-world case. The results provided a valuable benchmark for flight route planning with environmental, flight time, sustainable flight trajectory planning and fuel consumption considerations, and showed significant contrail length reduction through an optimal selection of altitude and true airspeed.
KW - Contrail formulation
KW - Flight time
KW - Fuel consumption
KW - Multi-objective optimisation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089907153&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/SU12156253
DO - 10.3390/SU12156253
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85089907153
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 12
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 15
M1 - 6253
ER -