Improved Noise Abatement Departure Procedure Modeling for Aviation Environmental Impact Assessment

Abstract

In order to ensure sustainable growth in global air transportation, it is important to make harmonized efforts to mitigate the environmental impacts from aircraft operations. Accurate modeling of environmental impacts from aviation is a cornerstone in the development of such mitigation solutions. When quantifying noise, fuel burn, and emissions impacts from aircraft departure operations, the current best modeling practice implemented in FAA’s Aviation Environmental Design Tool makes a set of assumptions. Previous studies have suggested that improved assumptions on departure procedures would yield more accurate estimations of noise, fuel burn, and emissions from aircraft departures. Based on literature review and interviews, the modern departure procedures that airlines have adopted are summarized. The identification and categorization of different departure procedures reveal the gap between the real-world operation and the best modeling practices. This study proposes a method to model the collected departure procedures. Modeling of various departure procedures enables quantitative comparisons of noise, fuel burn, and emission impacts around airports. The results show that certain categories of departure procedures help reduce noise exposures on some communities around the airport. However, those departure procedure can have negative impacts on fuel consumption, air traffic capacity and even noise levels on some other parts of the community. The outcome of the study can help the airports, airlines, and the communities choose a more appropriate departure procedure while simultaneously considering the key performance and environmental metrics.