PM emissions measurements of in-service commercial aircraft engines during the Delta-Atlanta Hartsfield Study

This paper describes the results of the physical characterization of aircraft engine PM emission measurements conducted during the Delta-Atlanta Hartsfield Study at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Engine exit plane PM emissions were sampled from on-wing engines on several in-service commercial transport aircraft from the fleet of Delta Airlines. The size distributions were lognormal in nature with a single mode. The geometric mean diameter was found to increase with increasing engine thrust, ranging from 15 nm at idle to 40 nm at takeoff. PM number- and mass-based emission indices were observed to be higher at the idle conditions (4% and 7%), lowest at 15%-30% thrust, and then increase with increasing thrust. Emissions measurements were also conducted during an advected plume study where over 300 exhaust plumes generated by a broad mix of commercial transports were sampled 100-350 m downwind from aircraft operational runways during normal airport operations. The range of values measured at take-off for the different engine types in terms of PM number-based emission index was between 7 × 1015-9 × 1017 particles/kg fuel burned, and that for PM mass-based emission index was 0.1-0.6 g/kg fuel burned. PM characteristics of aircraft engine specific exhaust were found to evolve over time as the exhaust plume expands, dilutes with ambient air, and cools. The data from these measurements will enhance the emissions inventory development for a subset of engines operating in the commercial fleet and improve/validate current environmental impact predictive tools with real world aircraft engine specific PM emissions inputs.