Method for Quantifying Pollutant Emissions Within Preliminary Design of Small Aircraft

In modern aircraft development, ecological impacts play an increasingly important role alongside economic aspects. The lack of an appropriate methodology for quantifying pollutant emissions of small aircraft with propulsion systems containing combustion engines thereby presents a significant limitation in the eco-efficiency assessment of this aircraft class. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to derive a semi-empirical method that enables initial yet accurate estimates of local emissions and global warming potential from the operation of small aircraft with combustion engines already at the preliminary aircraft design stage. After formulation of the chemical equation for burning Aviation Gasoline 100 LL with air, a solution for this equation, taking into account the limited level of detail usually associated with the preliminary design stage, is presented. A subsequent comparison of the results obtained from the application of the novel methodology to a reverse-engineered Cessna T182T Skylane with data actually measured shows good agreement over a wide range of operating conditions with an error bandwidth of 8%, typical for preliminary design. Additionally, the presented method improves the determination of the actual global warming potential from small aircraft operations due to the estimation of real pollutant emission composition rather than emission factors associated with ideal combustion.