The Impact of Uncertainty on Zero-Emission Aircraft Design

随着航空业寻求减少其气候足迹，进展受到缺乏共识的阻碍，即哪些途径最有可能导致快速，有影响力的结果。这是由于对与开发和实施新型航空技术和燃料相关的时间框架、成本和气候影响等因素的看法存在分歧。意见的分歧，反过来，是由于缺乏一个正式的方式来处理与航空有关的不确定性，这是目前在所有规模的航空系统。该项目的主要目标是确定和量化的不确定性，在航空业以系统的方式，旨在创建一个不确定性评估框架，用于制定到2050年实现净零航空的路线图。通过对有关航空技术发展的历史和文献案例研究的分析，了解航空领域存在的主要不确定性类型。将制定一个评估表，以评估每种不确定性类型的影响，以便能够比较不同类型的不确定性，尽管它们具有不同的特点。与此同时，还将创建综合图表，概述航空系统所涉主要利益攸关方之间的互动，以及推动其行动的技术和社会经济因素。不确定性将被映射到这些图上，以了解它们在不同尺度下在整个系统中的传播，以及每种不确定性对其他不确定性的影响。通过量化每种不确定性的影响，以及多种不确定性之间的相互作用，将确定它们对新航空技术的设计、开发和实施的总体影响。这有助于突出技术、业务和政策战略的组合，最有可能以及时、成本效益高和影响大的方式成功减少与航空有关的排放。

As the aviation industry is looking to reduce its climate footprint, progress is hindered by a lack of consensus on which pathways are most likely to lead to fast, impactful results. This is underpinned by a discrepancy in views regarding the timeframes, costs and climate effects associated with the development and implementation of novel aviation technologies and fuels, amongst other factors. The discrepancy in views, in turn, is caused by the absence of a formalised way of dealing with aviation-related uncertainties, which are present at all scales within the aviation system.The key objective of the project is the identification and quantification of uncertainties within the aviation industry in a systematic manner, with a view to creating an uncertainty assessment framework that could be used in the development of roadmaps to achieve net zero aviation by 2050.The project aims to understand and categorise the main types of uncertainty that are present within aviation through the analysis of historical and literature-based case studies concerning the development of aviation technologies. Metrics will be developed to assess the impact of each uncertainty type in a manner that enables different types of uncertainties to be compared despite their different characteristics. In parallel, comprehensive graphs outlining interactions between the main stakeholders involved in the aviation system, together with the technical and socioeconomical factors that drive their actions, will be created. Uncertainties will be mapped on these graphs in order to understand their propagation throughout the system at different scales, as well as the way each type of uncertainty influences the others.By quantifying the effect of each uncertainty in isolation, together with the effect of interactions between multiple uncertainty types, their overall impact on the design, development and implementation of new aviation technologies will be determined. This could serve to highlight the combinations of technological, operations and policy strategies that are most likely to succeed in reducing aviation-related emissions in a timely, cost-effective and high-impact manner.