Design of an Airport Service Infrastructure for Sustainable Refueling of Aircraft

Design of an Airport Service Infrastructure for Sustainable Refueling of Aircraft: Model Development for the Quantification of CO2e Emissions, Total Cost of Ownership and Grid Load Effects of Electrified Refueler Fleets at Future Airports

Bosma, Tom (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering)

Schott, D.L. (mentor)
Beelaerts van Blokland, W.W.A. (graduation committee)
Troquete, R.P.M.H.G. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Mechanical Engineering

2022-06-20

Ground Support Equipment (GSE) fleets must be made more sustainable to contribute to the achievement of emission stabilisation and reduction goals for a growing aviation sector. Electrification of GSE offers great opportunities to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, thereby increasing sustainability. This research focuses on how to design an airport service infrastructure for sustainable refueling of aircraft using electric refuelers. Although important for the design of such infrastructure, current literature fails to investigate potential emission reduction as a result of implementing electric GSE in mixed fleets with conventionally fueled GSE. Therefore, this work presents the development of a capacity model that quantifies the performance of sustainable refueling service infrastructures, consisting of partially (or fully) electrified fleets and charging points, in terms of annual CO2e emissions. Using future flight schedules as input, this algorithm models the activity of electrified refueler fleets taking charging downtime and forecasted airport growth into account. Model outputs provide insights in future fleet size, fleet mix and charging infrastructure requirements on a tactical level to achieve carbon emission goals for refueler fleets on a strategic level. As capital investments have to be made to electrify refueler fleets, the effect on the Total Cost of Ownership for ground handlers is investigated as well. The entire model functions as an essential input for future airport design related to aircraft services.

Electric refueler
Sustainable airport
Mixed fleets
CO2e emissions
Total Cost of Ownership
Charging
Grid load effects
Flight schedule
Case study

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:3cb21f43-d86c-400e-9c3e-9bb31a81854c

Student theses

master thesis

© 2022 Tom Bosma