Contrail Assessment of Future Aircraft and Propulsion Architectures

Start date: 10 May 2024
End date: 31 December 2026
Funder: NERC
Value: £999,880 (£381,630 to University of Leeds)
Partners and collaborators: Airbus, Rolls Royce
External primary investigator: Edward Richardson (University of Southampton)
Co-investigators: Dr Alex Rap, Professor Amanda Maycock, Professor Piers Forster
External co-investigators: Temistocle Grenga (Southampton), Ali Elham (Southampton)

The project assesses the contrail climate impact of future low-CO2 aircraft, incorporating rigorous analysis of turbulence/microphysics interactions into climate-optimised aircraft design. Aircraft contrails and contrail cirrus accounts for more than half of the climate forcing from aircraft operations to date. Radically different airframe and propulsion concepts have been developed as a means to reduce CO2 emission, but the impact of these developments on contrail formation has not been part of the design process. Contrail formation in the aircraft wake is affected by the wing planform and the type and positioning of the propulsors, but established contrail formation models have been developed only with reference to conventional tube-wing aircraft architectures. This limits their applicability - alternative aircraft technologies affect the distribution of ice particles that form, requiring re-evaluation of the climate forcing that results from choosing different technology pathways.

Building on the project team's expertise in modelling complex interactions of mixing, microphysics and atmospheric processes, methods will be developed to assess how different aircraft and propulsion architecture choices affect the climate impact of future aircraft. Climate-optimised development of advanced aircraft concepts will be demonstrated. Effects of advanced aircraft architectures on contrail development will be studied computationally and incorporated into a new contrail simulation approach that accounts for detailed contrail microphysics in high-throughput design calculations. Methods for assessing the climate forcing due to alternative technologies and operating strategies will be incorporated into freely available software that takes account of the detailed development of contrail cirrus.

Impact

Through participation of forward-looking airframe and propulsion system manufacturers, this project will directly inform the path we take to minimise the overall climate impact of future aviation.