Development of an aviation-specific life cycle assessment approach for ecological assessment of unconventional aircraft concepts

Air transport is currently responsible for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions and 3.5% of the total global warming effect, and it is the means of passenger transport with the largest environmental impact. Since air traffic is not likely to diminish in the future, it becomes imperative to find ways to reduce its impacts. To this end, novel aircraft concepts, particularly for body configuration (e.g. blended-wing body) and propulsion system (e.g. hydrogen as an energy carrier), are emerging; instruments capable of correctly assessing the environmental performance of these new concepts are therefore needed. In this thesis, requirements for such tools are identified. Then, a framework for comprehensive life cycle assessment of unconventional aircrafts is proposed. Finally, a comparison and possible integration of the developed methodology with the UNICADO design tool are presented.