The Impact of Uncertainty on Zero-Emission Aircraft Design

航空业正在寻求减少其气候足迹，但在哪些途径最有可能产生快速、有影响力的结果方面缺乏共识，阻碍了进展。除了其他因素外，在与新型航空技术和燃料的开发和实施相关的时间框架、成本和气候影响等方面的观点存在差异，这也是原因之一。观点的差异，反过来，是由于缺乏一种正式的方式来处理与航空有关的不确定性，这些不确定性在航空系统的所有尺度上都存在。该项目的主要目标是以系统的方式确定和量化航空业的不确定性，以期建立一个不确定性评估框架，可用于制定到2050年实现航空净零排放的路线图。该项目旨在通过对航空技术发展的历史和文献案例研究的分析，了解和分类航空领域存在的主要不确定性类型。将制定衡量标准，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征。与此同时，将创建综合图表，概述航空系统中主要利益相关者之间的相互作用，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，以便了解它们在不同尺度上在整个系统中的传播，以及每种不确定性影响其他不确定性的方式。通过对每一种不确定性的孤立影响以及多种不确定性类型之间相互作用的影响进行量化，将确定它们对新航空技术的设计、开发和实施的总体影响。这将有助于突出技术、业务和政策战略的结合，这些结合最有可能以及时、成本效益高和影响大的方式成功地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.