Assessment of the Ability of Existing Airport Gate Infrastructure to Accommodate Transport Category Aircraft with Increased Wingspan for Improved Fuel Efficiency
Name
MIT_Wingspan_Thesis_Bishop.pdf
Size
7.99 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
075feb688f1f0ef985c7c212d7a342cc
Author(s)
Bishop, Kristina
Hansman, R. John
Date Issued
June 7, 2012
Series/Report no.
ICAT;2012-4
Abstract
The continuous trend of rising fuel prices increases interest in improving the fuel
efficiency of aircraft operations. Additionally, since fuel burn is directly linked to aircraft
CO2 emissions, reducing fuel consumption has environmental benefits. One approach to
reducing airline cost and mitigating environmental impacts of aviation is to achieve
higher fuel efficiency by increasing aircraft wingspan. One concern is that airports may
not be able to accommodate increased-wingspan aircraft since existing gate infrastructure
may have been sized for the past and current aircraft. This results in a potential tradeoff
for airlines; increasing wingspan increases fuel efficiency, but it also limits the number of
gates available to maintain current aircraft operations. The objective of this thesis is to
evaluate this tradeoff...
Subjects
fuel efficiency
aircraft operations
fuel burn
CO2 emissions
aircraft wingspan
air transportation
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