scholarly journals Fuel Tankering: Economic Benefits and Environmental Impact for Flights Up to 1500 NM (Full Tankering) and 2500 NM (Partial Tankering)

Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Laurent Tabernier ◽  
Esther Calvo Fernández ◽  
Andreas Tautz ◽  
Robin Deransy ◽  
Peter Martin

The majority of emissions from aviation come from the combustion of the fuel required to operate each flight. Keeping the fuel consumption required for a safe flight to the absolute minimum is therefore the simplest and most effective way to ensure that emissions from that flight are kept to a minimum. In practice, however, the fuel load is determined by each aircraft operator on the basis of a number of criteria maximizing first cost efficiency, rather than fuel savings. In this context, tankering is the practice of carrying more fuel than is necessary for the safe execution of the flight to avoid or minimize refueling at the destination airport. It offers an economic advantage when there is a significant difference in fuel prices between the departure and arrival airports, but considerably increases the amount of emissions produced, because the more fuel an aircraft carries, the heavier it is, and carrying this extra weight increases its fuel consumption. This paper presents the steps followed by EUROCONTROL in conducting a first study to estimate the number of times this practice would offer an economic benefit and the amount of extra CO2 emissions that would result. This study, limited to flights up to 1500 and 2500 NM, corresponding mainly to short and medium-haul flights, estimates that, in 2018, 21% of ECAC (In this paper, ECAC refers to the geographical region defined by the 44 member states that signed the European Civil Aviation Conference) flights would perform fuel tankering beneficially. This would represent a net saving of 265 M€ per year for the airlines, but the burning of 286,000 tonnes of additional fuel (equivalent to 0.54% of ECAC jet fuel used), or 901,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. At a time when aviation is challenged for its contribution to climate change, the use of fuel tankering for economic reasons is therefore highly questionable.

Aircraft spends a minimum of 20 minutes using its main engine to taxi from the airport terminal gate to the runway, where the aircraft takes-off and similarly to the terminal gate after landing. During taxi operation, aircraft burns a lot of fuel, generates large quantity of emissions and the engine in the process of taxiing is exposed to damage due to Foreign Object Damage (FOD). This results in huge operational and maintenance cost as well as carbon emission tax which are all at the expense of the airline. EGTS is a recent technology designed to prevent aircraft from using its main engine for taxi operation and this in turn reduces the rate of fuel consumption, slashes carbon emissions and minimises operational and maintenance cost. This paper examines the viability of using EGTS in single engines for taxi operation rather than the aircraft engine. Block fuel savings was calculated for two engine, single engine and hybrid aircraft and it was observed that two engine aircraft using EGTS saved 110kg block fuel, single engine saved 74kg and for hybrid engine the block fuel savings was 50kg. Block fuel savings was calculated for aircraft such as airbus A320, airbus A380, Cessna 172 and A600ST and it was observed that EGTS is more compatible with airbus A320 but was not recommended for A600ST and A380 due to extra weight implication and for Cessna 172, EGTS was not necessary because the aircraft weight is low and consumes less fuel already. It was observed that the higher the aircraft weight including the extra weight of EGTS, the higher the fuel consumption emission as well as the torque required to overcome drag force when the aircraft operates in air. CO2 emission was also calculated for aircraft with EGTS and aircraft without installation, the result for aircraft with EGTS showed 797.56kg reduction of CO2 emission when compared to aircraft without EGTS. Comparably, EGTS was proven to be viable in terms of fuel savings, CO2 emissions, operational and maintenance cost than its contemporary Ground Propulsion Systems (GPS) for single aircraft engines and therefore, was recommended for aircraft in airbus A320 category to help minimise global warming which results from CO2 emission during taxing operations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-421
Author(s):  
Lisha Ye ◽  
Li Cao ◽  
Xuhui Wang

Fuel savings are a significant aspect for evaluating the current and future technologies of civil aviation. Continuous-Descent Approach (CDA), as a representative of new concepts, requires a method for evaluating its fuel benefits. However, because of unavailability of the practical operational data, it is difficult to validate whether the previous fuel consumption mechanisms are suitable. This paper presents a unique method for quantifying potential fuel benefits. This permits an easy evaluation for the new procedures without modelling before implementing field tests. The proposed method is detailed in this paper. It derives from the inherent mechanical characteristic of aircraft engine, and utilizes historical flight data, rather than modelling, to predict fuel flow rates by matching flight conditions from Quick Access Recorder (QAR) data. The result has been shown to predict fuel consumption for conventional descent with the deviation of ±0.73%. To validate such method, a case study for our designed CDA procedure is presented. Fuel consumptions in baseline scenarios are estimated to analyse the variable impacts on fuel consumption. The estimated fuel benefits are consistent with the results in the previous field tests. This analysis helps support Air Traffic Management decisions on eventual field test by reducing the validation time and cost.


Author(s):  
C. Pandian ◽  
A. Sundaresan ◽  
A. V. Omprakash

The present study was conducted to assess the effect of supplementation of Multi-enzymes with lysophospholipids on production performance of pure line White Leghorn layers. Body weights before and after the experiment did not differ significantly across the experimental diets. Irrespective of the dietary treatments, the birds gained 3.83 per cent of live weight relative to its initial body weight. Mean per cent Hen housed egg production was significantly (Pis less than 0.05) higher in diet supplemented with 0.10 MEC-L than other groups. Mean egg weight and average daily feed consumption during 25 to 35 weeks of age indicated no significant effect of enzyme supplementation. Average daily feed consumption per bird in control, 0.05 % and 0.1% multi-enzyme supplemented groups was 108.13, 105.66 and 107.67 g respectively and birds offered control diet recorded numerically more feed intake than enzyme supplemented groups. Comparatively low feed per egg was observed in 0.10 per cent group followed by 0.05 per cent group which offers economic benefits than control diets. However, the egg quality traits between different dietary enzyme supplementation groups showed no significant difference.


Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2053
Author(s):  
Junsong Shi ◽  
Baohua Tan ◽  
Lvhua Luo ◽  
Zicong Li ◽  
Linjun Hong ◽  
...  

How to maximize the use of the genetic merits of the high-ranking boars (also called superior ones) is a considerable question in the pig breeding industry, considering the money and time spent on selection. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is one of the potential ways to answer the question, which can be applied to produce clones with genetic resources of superior boar for the production of commercial pigs. For practical application, it is essential to investigate whether the clones and their progeny keep behaving better than the “normal boars”, considering that in vitro culture and transfer manipulation would cause a series of harmful effects to the development of clones. In this study, 59,061 cloned embryos were transferred into 250 recipient sows to produce the clones of superior Pietrain boars. The growth performance of 12 clones and 36 non-clones and the semen quality of 19 clones and 28 non-clones were compared. The reproductive performance of 21 clones and 25 non-clones were also tested. Furthermore, we made a comparison in the growth performance between 466 progeny of the clones and 822 progeny of the non-clones. Our results showed that no significant difference in semen quality and reproductive performance was observed between the clones and the non-clones, although the clones grew slower and exhibited smaller body size than the non-clones. The F1 progeny of the clones showed a greater growth rate than the non-clones. Our results demonstrated through the large animal population showed that SCNT manipulation resulted in a low growth rate and small body size, but the clones could normally produce F1 progeny with excellent growth traits to bring more economic benefits. Therefore, SCNT could be effective in enlarging the merit genetics of the superior boars and increasing the economic benefits in pig reproduction and breeding.


Author(s):  
Charbel R Ghanem ◽  
Elio N Gereige ◽  
Wissam S Bou Nader ◽  
Charbel J Mansour

There have been many studies conducted to replace the conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) with a more efficient engine, due to increasing regulations over vehicles’ emissions. Throughout the years, several external combustion engines were considered as alternatives to these traditional ICEs for their intrinsic benefits, among which are Stirling machines. These were formerly utilized in conventional powertrains; however, they were not implemented in hybrid vehicles. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of implementing a Stirling engine in a series hybrid electric vehicle (SHEV) to substitute the ICE. Exergy analysis was conducted on a mathematical model, which was developed based on a real simple Stirling, to pinpoint the room for improvements. Then, based on this analysis, other configurations were retrieved to reduce exergy losses. Consequently, a Stirling-SHEV was modeled, to be integrated as auxiliary power unit (APU). Hereafter, through an exergo-technological detailed selection, the best configuration was found to be the Regenerative Reheat two stages serial Stirling (RRe-n2-S), offering the best efficiency and power combination. Then, this configuration was compared with the Regenerative Stirling (R-S) and the ICE in terms of fuel consumption, in the developed SHEV on the WLTC. This was performed using an Energy Management Strategy (EMS) consisting of a bi-level optimization technique, combining the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA) with the Dynamic Programming (DP). This arrangement is used to diminish the fuel consumption, while considering the reduction of the APU’s ON/OFF switching times, avoiding technical issues. Results prioritized the RRe-n2-S presenting 12.1% fuel savings compared to the ICE and 14.1% savings compared to the R-S.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 8059
Author(s):  
Calogero Schillaci ◽  
Tommaso Tadiello ◽  
Marco Acutis ◽  
Alessia Perego

Proximal sensing represents a growing avenue for precision fertilization and crop growth monitoring. In the last decade, precision agriculture technology has become affordable in many countries; Global Positioning Systems for automatic guidance instruments and proximal sensors can be used to guide the distribution of nutrients such as nitrogen (N) fertilization using real-time applications. A two-year field experiment (2017–2018) was carried out to quantify maize yield in response to variable rate (VR) N distribution, which was determined with a proximal vigour sensor, as an alternative to a fixed rate (FR) in a cereal-livestock farm located in the Po valley (northern Italy). The amount of N distributed for the FR (140 kg N ha−1) was calculated according to the crop requirement and the regional regulation: ±30% of the FR rate was applied in the VR treatment according to the Vigour S-index calculated on-the-go from the CropSpec sensor. The two treatments of N fertilization did not result in a significant difference in yield in both years. The findings suggest that the application of VR is more economically profitable than the FR application rate, especially under the hypothesis of VR application at a farm scale. The outcome of the experiment suggests that VR is a viable and profitable technique that can be easily applied at the farm level by adopting proximal sensors to detect the actual crop N requirement prior to stem elongation. Besides the economic benefits, the VR approach can be regarded as a sustainable practice that meets the current European Common Agricultural Policy.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 547
Author(s):  
Hrvoje Kopseak ◽  
Marijan Šušnjar ◽  
Marin Bačić ◽  
Mario Šporčić ◽  
Zdravko Pandur

For the needs of fuel consumption analysis, a database for a period of 2 years was created for three types of skidders operating in two different management methods—even-aged and selective forests. A total of 436 skidders were processed in the database, of which 255 skidders worked in even-aged forests and 181 skidders worked in selective forests. The average consumption of skidders in even-aged forests ranged from 1.38 to 1.65 L/m3 or from 7.81 to 9.34 L/PMH, while in selective forests, the average consumption ranged from 1.06 to 1.34 L/m3 or from 6.49 to 7.10 L/PMH. The obtained results indicate higher fuel consumption for all three types of skidders in regular forest management. There is no statistically significant difference in fuel consumption between the studied skidders. Comparing fuel consumption in L/PMH, we notice that there was an increase in fuel consumption in relation to the age of the skidder.


Author(s):  
Ioannis Goulos ◽  
Fakhre Ali ◽  
Konstantinos Tzanidakis ◽  
Vassilios Pachidis ◽  
Roberto d'Ippolito

This paper presents an integrated methodology for the comprehensive assessment of combined rotorcraft–powerplant systems at mission level. Analytical evaluation of existing and conceptual designs is carried out in terms of operational performance and environmental impact. The proposed approach comprises a wide-range of individual modeling theories applicable to rotorcraft flight dynamics and gas turbine engine performance. A novel, physics-based, stirred reactor model is employed for the rapid estimation of nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. The individual mathematical models are implemented within an elaborate numerical procedure, solving for total mission fuel consumption and associated pollutant emissions. The combined approach is applied to the comprehensive analysis of a reference twin-engine light (TEL) aircraft modeled after the Eurocopter Bo 105 helicopter, operating on representative mission scenarios. Extensive comparisons with flight test data are carried out and presented in terms of main rotor trim control angles and power requirements, along with general flight performance charts including payload-range diagrams. Predictions of total mission fuel consumption and NOx emissions are compared with estimated values provided by the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA). Good agreement is exhibited between predictions made with the physics-based stirred reactor model and experimentally measured values of NOx emission indices. The obtained results suggest that the production rates of NOx pollutant emissions are predominantly influenced by the behavior of total air inlet pressure upstream of the combustion chamber, which is affected by the employed operational procedures and the time-dependent all-up mass (AUM) of the aircraft. It is demonstrated that accurate estimation of on-board fuel supplies ahead of flight is key to improving fuel economy as well as reducing environmental impact. The proposed methodology essentially constitutes an enabling technology for the comprehensive assessment of existing and conceptual rotorcraft–powerplant systems, in terms of operational performance and environmental impact.


Author(s):  
Saeed Vasebi ◽  
Yeganeh M. Hayeri ◽  
Constantine Samaras ◽  
Chris Hendrickson

Gasoline is the main source of energy used for surface transportation in the United States. Reducing fuel consumption in light-duty vehicles can significantly reduce the transportation sector’s impact on the environment. Implementation of emerging automated technologies in vehicles could result in fuel savings. This study examines the effect of automated vehicle systems on fuel consumption using stochastic modeling. Automated vehicle systems examined in this study include warning systems such as blind spot warning, control systems such as lane keeping assistance, and information systems such as dynamic route guidance. We have estimated fuel savings associated with reduction of accident and non-accident-related congestion, aerodynamic force reduction, operation load, and traffic rebound. Results of this study show that automated technologies could reduce light-duty vehicle fuel consumption in the U.S. by 6% to 23%. This reduction could save $60 to $266 annually for the owners of vehicles equipped with automated technologies. Also, adoption of automated vehicles could benefit all road users (i.e., conventional vehicle drivers) up to $35 per vehicle annually (up to $6.2 billion per year).


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