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The ratio of the energy liberated during a flight to the revenue work done (ETRW) of an airplane can be employed as a key indicator to assess its environmental impact. It remains constant during the life cycle of the aircraft and is fixed by its designers. The goal of an environmentally optimum airplane is to minimize the ETRW. This paper seeks to address these issues.

For an existing airplane, there are two major parameters that can greatly affect the ETRW, which are the ratio of actual payload to maximum possible payload “c” and the flight range R. The goal of this paper is to study the effect of c and R on ETRW and minimize it by using a genetic algorithm (GA). The study is performed on a Boeing 737‐800 and a Boeing 747‐400 aircraft as well as recently proposed aircraft designs, namely the Boeing second generation Blended‐Wing‐Body (BWB) and MIT Double‐Bubble D8.2.

It turns out that the maximum possible values of payload and range do not necessarily lead to a flight with minimal environmental impact. For new aircraft designs, the minimization of ETRW should account for advances in materials, alternative fuels, structures, aerodynamics and propulsion technologies which can be taken into consideration at the design stage.

It should be noted that other factors which also affect the emissions, namely the aircraft operations and air traffic management, are not included in the ETRW.

The optimization study is valuable in determining the payload and range of an existing aircraft or a new aircraft configuration for minimal environmental impact.

The ratio of the energy transformed to the revenue work done (ETRW) during a flight of an airplane can be employed as a key indicator to assess its environmental impact. It remains constant during the life cycle of the aircraft and is fixed by its designers. The goal of an environmentally optimum airplane is to minimize the ETRW.

For an existing airplane, there are two major parameters that can greatly affect the ETRW, which are the ratio of actual payload to maximum possible payload “c” and the flight range R. The goal of this paper is to study the effect of c and R on ETRW and minimize it by using a genetic algorithm (GA). The study is performed on a Boeing 737-800 and a Boeing 747-400 aircraft as well as recently proposed aircraft designs namely the Boeing second-generation Blended-Wing-Body (BWB) and MIT Double-Bubble D8.2.

It turns out that the maximum possible values of payload and range do not necessarily lead to a flight with minimal environmental impact. For new aircraft designs, the minimization of ETRW should account for advances in materials, alternative fuels, structures, aerodynamics and propulsion technologies which can be taken into consideration at design stage.

It should be noted that other factors which also affect the emissions, namely the aircraft operations and air traffic management, are not included in the ETRW.

The optimization study is valuable in determining the payload and range of an existing aircraft or a new aircraft configuration for minimal environmental impact.

This study aims to introduce an approach to evaluate environmental impact of a piston-prop engine from the view point of life cycle assessment (LCA).

In the aviation industry, safety is an important issue. For reliable and safe flights, the maintenance of aerial vehicles and engines is mandatory. Additionally, regular and correct maintenance plays a key role in keeping efficiency at a high level. With this in mind, a LCA of a regular 50 hourly maintenance process of Cessna type training aircraft is conducted. During the assessment, the starting of the engine before maintenance, replacement of the oil filter, test procedure of the spark plugs, a compressor test, engine cleaning and engine starting following maintenance are taken into account.

At the end of the study, normalization and characterization values for the maintenance, electricity consumption during maintenance and used fuel are obtained.

Regarding the number of this type aircraft worldwide, the current study offers a valuable contribution to the literature. The authors also intend to introduce an approach which may be useful for the assessment of large body aircraft still in service.

The present paper is a pioneer for future applications of LCA methodology to piston-prop engines and training aircraft.