Overview
Emissions from aircraft have adverse effects on the air quality in and around airports, contributing to public health concerns within neighbouring communities. AVIATOR will adopt a multi-level measurement, modelling and assessment approach to develop an improved description and quantification of the relevant aircraft engine emissions, and their impact on air quality under different climatic conditions.
Engine particulate and gaseous emissions in a test cell and on-wing from an in-service aircraft will be measured to determine pollutant plume evolution from the engine and APU exhaust. This will provide an enhanced understanding of primary emitted pollutants, specifically the nvPM and vPM (down to 10nm), and the scalability between the regulatory test cell and real environments.
AVIATOR will develop and deploy across multiple airports, a proof-of-concept low cost sensor network for the monitoring of UFP, PM and gaseous species such as NOx and SOx, across airport and surrounding communities. Transport and impact of emissions from aircraft engines and APU will be monitored in this more complex environment through high fidelity and sensor measurements.
Campaigns will be complemented by high-fidelity modelling of aircraft exhaust dynamics, microphysical and chemical processes within the plume. CFD, box, and airport air quality models will be applied, providing validated parameterizations of the relevant processes, applicable to standard dispersion modelling on the local scale.
Working with the regulatory community, AVIATOR will develop improved guidance on measuring and modelling the impact of aircraft emissions with specific reference to UFP. Acknowledging the uncertainty surrounding health impacts of UFP, AVIATOR will work with the public health community to develop methodologies for the representative sampling of aircraft emissions.
AVIATOR will provide airports and regulators with tools and guidance to improve the assessment of air quality in and around airports.