Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture

In the last 30 years, aircraft performance has experienced diminishing returns in terms of efficiency, on the order of 1% reduction in fuel consumption annually since 2010. Meanwhile, according to projections by Airbus and Boeing, air passenger traffic is expected to increase 3.5-4.6% per annum. Int...

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Main Authors: Cameron, Bruce Gregory, Crawley, Edward F, Kellari, Demetrios
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Format: Article
Published: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115163
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author Cameron, Bruce Gregory
Crawley, Edward F
Kellari, Demetrios
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Cameron, Bruce Gregory
Crawley, Edward F
Kellari, Demetrios
author_sort Cameron, Bruce Gregory
collection MIT
description In the last 30 years, aircraft performance has experienced diminishing returns in terms of efficiency, on the order of 1% reduction in fuel consumption annually since 2010. Meanwhile, according to projections by Airbus and Boeing, air passenger traffic is expected to increase 3.5-4.6% per annum. International Civil Aviation Organization has recommended that overall energy efficiency be improved by 2% annually. The rate of increase in demand and decrease in fuel consumption raises the question of how this goal can be met. In this paper, engine technology advances are identified as the most significant contributing trend to aircraft performance. These trends are extrapolated in order to analyze the conditions that could lead to a potential break in the dominant aircraft architecture. A hybrid analytical/empirical model for aircraft optimization is used to predict the effects of these technological trends on aircraft design. Four technology scenarios are used to analyze the expected performance increase and expected year of break in architecture, for existing airframes and unconstrained airframe geometry. It is found that for existing airframes performance is expected to increase by 6-38% relative to the 737MAX and A320neo within the next 10- 14 years and 17-40% for an unconstrained airframe within the next 20-30 years.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1151632022-10-01T03:19:20Z Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture Cameron, Bruce Gregory Crawley, Edward F Kellari, Demetrios Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society Cameron, Bruce Gregory Crawley, Edward F Kellari, Demetrios In the last 30 years, aircraft performance has experienced diminishing returns in terms of efficiency, on the order of 1% reduction in fuel consumption annually since 2010. Meanwhile, according to projections by Airbus and Boeing, air passenger traffic is expected to increase 3.5-4.6% per annum. International Civil Aviation Organization has recommended that overall energy efficiency be improved by 2% annually. The rate of increase in demand and decrease in fuel consumption raises the question of how this goal can be met. In this paper, engine technology advances are identified as the most significant contributing trend to aircraft performance. These trends are extrapolated in order to analyze the conditions that could lead to a potential break in the dominant aircraft architecture. A hybrid analytical/empirical model for aircraft optimization is used to predict the effects of these technological trends on aircraft design. Four technology scenarios are used to analyze the expected performance increase and expected year of break in architecture, for existing airframes and unconstrained airframe geometry. It is found that for existing airframes performance is expected to increase by 6-38% relative to the 737MAX and A320neo within the next 10- 14 years and 17-40% for an unconstrained airframe within the next 20-30 years. 2018-05-02T15:27:04Z 2018-05-02T15:27:04Z 2017-11 2018-03-16T19:43:45Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0021-8669 1533-3868 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115163 Kellari, Demetrios, et al. “Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture.” Journal of Aircraft, vol. 54, no. 6, Nov. 2017, pp. 2213–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.C034266 Journal of Aircraft Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) MIT Web Domain
spellingShingle Cameron, Bruce Gregory
Crawley, Edward F
Kellari, Demetrios
Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture
title Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture
title_full Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture
title_fullStr Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture
title_full_unstemmed Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture
title_short Influence of Technology Trends on Future Aircraft Architecture
title_sort influence of technology trends on future aircraft architecture
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115163
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