A new method for estimating community noise changes due to aircraft technology variations

Abstract

Future air traffic growth forecasts underline the need for new environmental abatement strategies for aviation, involving, among others, the adoption of new aircraft designs and technologies. Accurately predicting the noise impact of these strategies is therefore a matter of significance. The reliability of existing tools is governed by tradeoffs between parameters such as their fidelity level, their dependence on confidential data, as well as the cost and accuracy of experimental data. This paper proposes an innovative, flexible and simplified method for aircraft noise prediction that by-passes the difficulties of existing models. Based on scenarios where community noise levels are known through existing tools or publicly available databases, the proposed method determines variations resulting from aircraft technology changes, such as the increase of the bypass ratio of a turbofan engine. The method shows promise of being applicable to new designs like the wing body aircraft, whereas, by adapting the input variables, it can also estimate the noise impact of changes at operational level. To illustrate the proposed method, which is part of a wider effort to better understand environmental and economic interdependencies, noise estimations are compared to existing NPD data.

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ORCID for Antonio Martinez: orcid.org/0000-0002-5915-3736

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