Multi-objective optimization of aircraft design for emission and cost reductions

Pollutant gases emitted from the civil jet are doing more and more harm to the environment with the rapid development of the global commercial aviation transport. Low environmental impact has become a new requirement for aircraft design. In this paper, estimation method for emission in aircraft conceptual design stage is improved based on the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aircraft engine emissions databank and the polynomial curve fitting methods. The greenhouse gas emission (CO2 equivalent) per seat per kilometer is proposed to measure the emissions. An approximate sensitive analysis and a multi-objective optimization of aircraft design for tradeoff between greenhouse effect and direct operating cost (DOC) are performed with five geometry variables of wing configuration and two flight operational parameters. The results indicate that reducing the cruise altitude and Mach number may result in a decrease of the greenhouse effect but an increase of DOC. And the two flight operational parameters have more effects on the emissions than the wing configuration. The Pareto-optimal front shows that a decrease of 29.8% in DOC is attained at the expense of an increase of 10.8% in greenhouse gases.