飞机失事调查报告

27TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE AERONAUTICAL SCIENCES

INNOVATIVE AIRPLANE GROUND HANDLING SYSTEM

FOR GREEN OPERATIONS

M. Battipede*, A. Della Corte*, M. Vazzola*, D. Tancredi** *Politecnico di Torino, Italy **West Virginia University, USA

Keywords: airport, ground, operations, renewable, energy

Abstract

The aim of this work is to develop a new concept of taxiing, in order to reduce the pollution in terms of noise and gas emission and to introduce a higher level of safety during ground operations.

In the area close to the airport gates, the airplane ground handlings are currently performed through the airplane engines, which have the task of providing the trust necessary to move the airplane to the runway.

Pollutant emissions and noise level near the gates, however, could be drastically reduced by introducing an innovative autonomous tractor called CHAT (Clean Hydrogen Autonomous Tractor), developed from the standard towbarless pushback tractor.

The ground operations could be basically modified by extending the time in which the airplane engines are idle and the airplane is towed by the tractors powered by renewable energy. 1 Introduction

CHAT is basically an autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) that is under the Traffic Management and Control (TMC) authority. The procedure is very easy and can be resumed as follows: CHAT is refueled with hydrogen before starting its mission. It communicates continuously with the TMC unit in order to receive details about the current mission, updates about the airport situation and, eventually, a new assignment.

CHAT autonomously connect to the front landing gear, using towbarless technology, and start to tow the airplane towards the runway.

Once CHAT reaches the runway, it releases the airplane, which is ready to start its engines using the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU).

After this phase, CHAT reaches the landed airplane and tow it to the assigned gate. During normal operations, CHAT always moves in taxi ways and avoids using the runways, which are exclusive use of the air traffic. These operations can be repeated in a continuous process of pushing and pulling for approximately 20 hours.

The impact of the CHAT employment can be advantageous for the vector companies, as well as for the environment, not to mention the reduction of noise, pilot workload and potential risks caused by jet blasts.

The employment of CHAT could effectively make the taxing process cheaper, faster and safer.

This system has a great potential on decreasing the airplanes’ emissions during ground maneuvers. This can be understood by taking into account the amount of kerosene burned by airplanes during taxiing operations. Considering a specific fuel consumption of 17.1 g/kN*s [1], and considering a normal taxi trust requirement of 100kN for an A320, it can be assumed a total engine fuel consumption of 1.7kg/s. For a taxi phase of about 10 minutes, an A320 airplane needs approximately 1 ton of kerosene. This calculation can vary with the taxi distance and with the type of engine used, but it is very easy to reach 500kg of kerosene even with small engine or short taxi runs.

This quantity must be multiplied by the global annual movements, which is a number rapidly increasing between 60 and 70 millions [2]. It can be said, thus, that the employment of a CHAT fleet could lead to a kerosene saving of 30 to 35 millions of tons per year.

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