Fuel-saving and emission accounting: An airliner case study for green engine selection

Abstract

In this research, differences in the quantities of hazardous emissions induced by equipping the first composite constructed narrow body aircraft, which is commonly used in commercial aviation today, with the most common engine combinations are examined. Each engine combination that is the subject of this research is actively deployed by a number of airlines and serves the majority of passenger transportation demands. The objective is to clearly depict the variation in the quantities of emissions generated by the various engine types employed in this commonly used passenger aircraft. The instability in the amounts of emissions in various flight phases of the same aircraft, performed with various engine specifications on the same trajectory and route, is determined using EUROCONTROL's Integrated Aircraft Noise and Emissions Modelling Platform (IMPACT), which is founded on the Base of Aircraft Data, Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA), and International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) Helicopter and Aircraft Engine Emission Database. The research seeks to answer the following question: Considering that airlines serve many destinations throughout the year, how much fuel saving and, indirectly, emissions mitigation are achieved per sortie as a result of replacing the engines used by airlines in their existing fleets with the most environmentally friendly equivalents?