Innovative Box-Wing Aircraft: Emissions and Climate Change

Abstract

The PARSIFAL project (Prandtlplane ARchitecture for the Sustainable Improvement of Future AirpLanes) aims to promote an innovative box-wing aircraft: the PrandtlPlane. Aircraft developed adopting this configuration are expected to achieve a payload capability higher than common single aisle analogues (e.g., Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 families), without any increase in the overall dimensions. We estimated the exhaust emissions from the PrandtlPlane and compared the corresponding impacts to those of a conventional reference aircraft, in terms of Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Global Temperature Potential (GTP), on two time-horizons and accounted for regional sensitivity. We considered carbon dioxide, carbonaceous and sulphate aerosols, nitrogen oxides and related ozone production, methane degradation and nitrate aerosols formation, contrails, and contrail cirrus. Overall, the introduction of the PrandtlPlane is expected to bring a considerable reduction of climate change in all the source regions considered, on both the time-horizons examined. Moreover, fuel consumption is expected to be reduced by 20%, as confirmed through high-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. Sensitivity of data, models, and metrics are detailed. Impact reduction and mitigation strategies are discussed, as well as the gaps to be addressed in order to develop a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment on aircraft emissions.

Tools and methodologies for box-wing aircraft conceptual aerodynamic design and aeromechanic analysis

“…In addition to the incremental improvement of the state-of-the-art technologies currently used to design and produce transport aircraft, industry and research are exploring disruptive technologies, both in the field of propulsion and in the exploration of novel airframe configurations, to face these demanding challenges [6]. In the field of propulsion, major efforts are focused on the development of hybrid or electric propulsion systems [7][8][9], thus favouring the increasing use of electric energy or hydrogen in place of fossil fuels.…”

Multi-scale deterministic optimisation of blended composite structures: case study of a box-wing

“…In particular, as a reference configuration, the PrP geometry developed within the EU funded research project PARSIFAL (Prandtlplane ARchitecture for the Sustainable Improvement of Future AirpLanes) [34] has been investigated. More details on the PrandtlPlane design within PARSIFAL project can be found in [35][36][37][38].…”

Aircraft Hybrid-Electric Propulsion: Development Trends, Challenges and Opportunities

“…Novel aircraft configurations such as hybrid wing body (HWB) (Kim et al 2008), blended wing body (BWB) (Yang et al 2018b;Boeing 2017 Box-Wing employs Prandtl plane architecture to achieve higher payload and passengers capacity, with lower fuel per pax-kilometer and lower emissions, compared with conventional designs. A CFD model of a medium range aircraft was developed, and results claim an estimated fuel consumption reduction of 22% (Tasca 2021). Conceptual tools are employed for unconventional design such as the box-wing.…”