sustainability

Article
Economic and Environmental Sustainability for
Aircrafts Service Life
Marcello Fera * , Raffaele Abbate, Mario Caterino , Pasquale Manco, Roberto Macchiaroli
and Marta Rinaldi
Department of Engineering, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 81031 Aversa, Italy;
raffaele.abbate90@live.it (R.A.); mario.caterino@unicampania.it (M.C.); pasquale.manco@unicampania.it (P.M.);
roberto.macchiaroli@unicampania.it (R.M.); marta.rinaldi@unicampania.it (M.R.)
* Correspondence: marcello.fera@unicampania.it; Tel.: +39-081-501-0415




Received: 22 October 2020; Accepted: 1 December 2020; Published: 3 December 2020


Abstract: Aircrafts are responsible for a significant environmental impact mainly due to the air
pollution caused by their motors. The use of composite materials for their production is a way to
significantly reduce the weight of the structures and to maximise the ratio between the payload
weight and the gasoline consumption. Moreover, the design phase has to consider the cost of different
operations performed during the aircraft service life. During the entire life cycle, one of the main
costs is the maintenance one. In the current literature, there is a lack of knowledge of methods for
maintenance cost estimation in the aircraft industry; moreover, very few environmental assessment
methods have been developed. Thus, the aim of this paper is to define a new method to support the
aircraft design process; both the environmental and the economic dimensions have been included
with the purpose of assessing the aircraft sustainability during its service life. A green index has been
identified mixing the maintenance cost and an environmental parameter with the aim of identifying
the greenest solution. A final practical application shows the feasibility and the simple application of
the proposed approach.

Keywords: aircraft industry; aircraft sustainability; green design; maintenance cost

1. Introduction
In the last years, the environmental situation has forced the entire world to focus its attention
on the green dimension and, in general, on the three pillars of sustainability. Thus, every company
and sector are adapting their business considering a new vision and preserving the quality of the
environment. In 2003, a study by Upham et al. started to point out the environmental impact in the
aircraft industry, considering several factors that influence the aircraft service life [1]. In the following
years, other researchers underlined the aircraft service effects on society and they studied the linked
economic aspects, mainly due to the depopulation of the areas near the airports [2–4].
In such a context, the use of composite materials in the aerospace industry is becoming a very
important topic because of several reasons, but all related to one main issue, i.e. the reduction of the
aircraft’s structural weight [5]. The weight reduction has a great influence and plays a relevant role
in the air pollution caused by aircrafts [6]. In fact, for years such a factor has been considered one of
the most significant contributors to sustainability [7]. At the same time, several problems have to be
considered, in particular the management of possible structural damages due to such materials [8].
The designer therefore needs to find a suitable trade-off between the air pollution reduction and the
economic considerations linked to the maintenance costs. Moreover, the decision-making process
needs to consider the classical variables related to the mechanical resistance, including economic and
environmental variables for a complete green evaluation.

Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120; doi:10.3390/su122310120 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 2 of 17

The current literature presents a huge lack of information on tools or methods for the sustainability
evaluation in the aerospace industry, while in other sectors, such as the maritime or railway sector,
there are many methods to be applied to the problem of sustainability [9,10]. In the past, several
methods have tried to estimate the lifecycle costs (LCC) of an aircraft, but all of them require specific
input data that are typically not available during the early design stage [11,12]. Such a gap has
been faced by Heller et al. who consider the concept of similarity indicators in order to estimate the
costs of a future product; the approach has been tested in the civil aircraft industry, but it does not
address environmental sustainability [13]. Ameli et al. proposed a design tool based on mathematical
programming to evaluate the life cycle cost and environmental impact of complex new products, such
as automobiles, ships and aircraft [14]. The model minimizes the manufacturer total cost during the
entire life cycle, including supply, transportation, production and end-of-life treatment costs; moreover,
a constraint checks the environmental suitability of the configuration. However, the model does not
consider nor assess the sustainability of the new solution during its usage stage.
As introduced, very few authors proposed methods for the aircraft sustainability assessment
to apply during the design phase. Starting from such consideration, the first open issue is to find a
quantitative way to estimate the future economic and environmental performance of an aircraft. From
here, there is a need of a decisional tool, a green decision support method that can help the designer to
take the suitable solution, considering all the relevant decision factors. The aim of this paper is to define
a new procedure to support the aircraft design process, able to evaluate both the environmental and the
economic dimensions with the purpose of assessing the aircraft sustainability during its service life. It
is well known that the aircraft maintenance cost strongly influences the economic performance of a fleet,
being the largest component of the total operation cost, excluding the fuel cost [15]. Thus, a new way
to measure the aircraft service life cost has been introduced, considering the maintenance cost as the
main impact factor and basing the computation on a forecasting method. Additionally, a quantitative
environmental index has been defined, linking the gasoline consumption to the transportable weight.
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: first, a literature review on aircraft maintenance
costing methods will be presented, then a new green decision support method based on the maintenance
cost estimation will be introduced; finally, an application of the method and the related conclusions
will be discussed.

2. Literature Review
Since some years, aircraft sustainability has become a well-known problem, but it still lacks
a clear definition. As discussed in the previous section, there is a lack in the current literature of
quantitative methods able to perform a realistic prediction about aircraft sustainability in the usage
stage. Since the proposed method is based on the maintenance costs, the literature review will focus
on aircraft maintenance and the relative costing methods proposed up to now. First, a brief overview
on the aircraft maintenance process is presented, which is typically based on a cyclic maintenance
policy. The process is generally composed of four stages, namely A, B, C and D. The first two types
concern simple checks and several tasks that can occur for each flight, while the last two types consist
of significant maintenance actions, which require specific operations on the structural parts and a
complete disassembly of the aircraft. Starting from such context, a systematic literature review has
been applied in order to find and study the proposed models able to estimate the aircraft maintenance
costs. A research question has been previously defined:

(i) which are the international studies focused on the lifecycle cost estimation based on the aircraft
maintenance costs?

In order to identify the pertinent papers, as previously briefly said, a systematic literature review
was carried out; this method firstly identifies the scientific database to be used, secondly defines the
search keywords and finally defines the exclusion criteria. Applying such a method, three scientific
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 3 of 17

databases were used: Google Scholar (GS), Scopus (SC) and Web of Science (WoS). Moreover, three
keywords groups were defined to start the computerized search:

• aircraft, aviation, airplane and aerospace;

• maintenance, condition-based maintenance (CBM), cyclic and predictive maintenance (PdM);
• costs, inspection intervals.

Later, these groups were combined by using the Boolean operators (AND, OR, etc.) and a first
search returned an amount of 726 articles (477 from SC, 179 from WoS and 70 from GS). Then, five
exclusion criteria for the selection of articles were defined:

• articles published before 2000;

• not English papers;
• duplicates from different databases;
• not peer-reviewed international journals;
• papers without a clear link between the groups of keywords.

Considering the first three criteria, the number was reduced to 410. Among them, just 93 papers
were found to be published in peer-reviewed journals. Then, another screening consisting of reading
title, abstract and keywords allowed detecting the articles that satisfy the last exclusion criteria: just
24 papers resulted in meeting all the selection criteria. Finally, a last full reading was performed in
order to find the papers in line with the aim of the study. The remaining 8 peer-reviewed papers were
individually examined to answer the research question.
A first analysis on the time range of the publications was carried out in order to show an increasing
attention on the topic in recent years; 75% of the revised papers were published in the last three years;
moreover no papers were found published before 2012 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Number of papers per year.

Later, some drivers have been defined in order to classify the papers analysed: focus, cost analysis
method, approach, and field of application and for each paper it is identified the driver covered (*).
Table 1 summarizes the main results.
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 4 of 17

Table 1. Selected papers—summary of contents.

Field of
Focus Cost Analysis Method Approach
Paper Application
Cost
Inspection Cost Benefit Civil
Costing Estimation/ Scheduled CBM PdM Other
Cycle Time Analysis Aviation
Optimization
[16] * * * * *
[17] * * * *
[18] * * * * *
[19] * * * * * * *
[20] * * * *
[21] * * * * *
[22] * * * *
[23] * * * *

The “focus” category is split into two main goals: cost evaluation and the definition of new cyclic
times for the inspection of the aircraft structure. In the same way, two different cost analysis methods
were identified. Concerning the “approach” category, three options were considered: the scheduled
maintenance, the condition-based maintenance (CBM) and the predictive one (PdM). Finally, the field
of application category is split into civil aviation and other types of aviation systems.
As already asserted, great attention was put on the papers that present a method to estimate the
maintenance costs. A cost model was developed by Pattabhiraman et al. in order to quantify the
savings, comparing different maintenance policies [19]. The total maintenance cost was computed
considering the engine, the airframe and the structural maintenance costs, and estimating the number
of maintenance actions. Since the number of services is unknown, two scenarios have been evaluated
with optimistic and pessimistic assumptions. In 2018, Dong and Kim proposed a cost–benefit analysis
in order to evaluate the performance of a structural health monitoring (SHM) system applied to the civil
aviation industry [16]. The authors included in the maintenance cost estimation just the costs affected
by replacing the SHM equipment, starting from the assumption that the cost analysis of an aircraft
over its lifecycle is too complicated. Later, Dong et al. quantified the benefits of a condition-based
maintenance based on SHM on the lifetime cost of an airplane fuselage [17]. Manufacturing costs,
maintenance costs and fuel costs were considered in the analysis. Once again, the maintenance cost
was simply estimated considering the cost of replacing sensors. Wang et al., 2017 determined the
expected maintenance costs quantifying the future damage distribution and considering different
methods for modelling the degradation process of a fuselage panel [18]; set up and repair costs were
included considering both scheduled and unscheduled actions. A maintenance decision support model
was developed by Lin et al. [20]; the objective was to schedule an appropriate maintenance plan for
minimizing the maintenance costs. The maintenance actions were estimated starting from a reliability
evaluation model and the real-time data obtained by monitoring the system. The need of real-time
information excludes its application in the design phase. In 2018, Lin et al. proposed a maintenance
cost optimisation model for an aircraft fleet. The aims were to simultaneously minimise the structural
repair cost and the cost of wasted remaining useful life, which depends on the probability of failure [21].
Chen et al. quantified maintenance costs by means of a probabilistic simulation model [22]. They
considered the cost of inspection (work force and equipment), the cost of repair (material and spare
parts) and the risk due to the uncertainty linked to any special event or unexpected severe damage.
A simulation case study was developed by Sun et al. in order to test the proposed maintenance cost
modelling [23]. Once again, inspection and repair costs were included in the analysis and once again,
several probability functions have been defined in order to quantify the unscheduled operations.
In conclusion, all the papers analysed are focused on maintenance costing methods based on a
bottom-up approach that is very difficult to apply especially in the design phase, as confirmed by
the literature [24,25]. The unsuitable application of bottom-up costing approach is justified by the
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 5 of 17

number of details needed to build a full costing formulation. In fact, some cost contributions are easy
to identify while others are difficult to estimate without a defined and detailed project. For instance,
the workforce total cost computation needs to define the execution time of the work which depends on
the process automation degree, the process production rate, the historic productivity for the specific
parts and so on. Thus, the simple workforce cost cannot be easily computed in the design phase.
Therefore, the literature analysis has demonstrated that less attention was paid to define a specific
procedure to estimate the cost of maintenance for the aircraft service life in the design phase. Thus, the
first aim of this paper is to cover such a gap by defining a new method to evaluate the maintenance
costs in the early stage of the design process. Starting from such result, a sustainability decision
support tool has been structured, mixing both the economic (maintenance cost) and the environmental
impact; the final purpose is to define a method to predict the sustainability of a specific solution in its
service life.

3. Decision Support Framework for Green Design

This paper proposes a quantitative approach for assessing the lifecycle sustainability of a new
design solution. The framework has been modelled considering both the economic and environmental
dimensions. First, a single evaluation of each perspective will be performed, and then a final global
index will be computed in order to find the greenest solution. As already explained, economic benefits
will be evaluated by means of the maintenance cost, while the environmental impact will be measured
with w0 , expressed as the ratio between the payload weight and the gasoline consumption. Finally, it
will be possible to identify the greenest solution balancing the two factors in terms of costs and benefits,
as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Framework of the sustainability decision support system.

4. Maintenance Cost Estimation Method

Starting from the framework presented, the first problem concerns the computation of the
maintenance cost for a specific part. In fact, the part estimation during the design stage is very difficult
for two main issues: (i) the information available is not detailed, (ii) the designer is generally not
skilled at costing methods. From here, the proposal to apply a well-known cost evaluation procedure,
namely analogous costing method (ACM) [24,26]. This approach is generally considered rough, but it
could provide interesting results if used by a designer because it is just based on shape and function
similarities. Thus, the designer has to simply assign the specific part to a specific family of products.
Moreover, the procedure presented in the paper allows detecting the most similar parts and calculating
a maintenance cost of the part using some parameters obtained by the shape. As an introduction, some
information needed to perform an ACM estimation are detailed:
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 6 of 17

• A database (DB) containing data about geometrical, mechanical and costing parameters of all the
parts maintained in the past (named old parts);
• a method to select the most similar old part in terms of shape and function;
• the identification of suitable coefficients that consider the differences between the new part to
design and the old part.

Moreover, the estimation procedure is divided in two main steps: (i) the similarity identification and
(ii) the cost estimation. The following nomenclature will be adopted in describing the methodological
steps: the “new” part is the one to design, the “old” parts are the ones contained in the database,
and the “family” is the part type, i.e., a fuselage, a stringer, an aircraft, etc. In order to make the
procedure consistent, new and old parts have to be designed considering the same material, the same
manufacturing process and they have to belong to the same family.
Over past years, many similarity indexes have been proposed in the literature; one of the most
used concerns the Euclidean distance computation considering some typical parameters (i = 1, . . . , n)
belonging to the elements to compare [27]:
v
t n
X 2
dnew−old = xnew, i − xold,i (1)
i=1

Thus, the choice of such an approach is justified by its wide application, and the similarity
between two parts has been investigated using two categories of parameters: (1) the part weight (that is
generally available being one of the main design request points) and (2) the geometrical characteristics.
It is important to explain that the application of the procedure depends on the part analysed. In
fact, a single element of the aircraft structure (e.g. a stringer, a frame, etc.) can be assessed using one or
more geometrical variables (the length for a stringer, the curvature for a frame, etc.). An assembled
element (e.g. a window, a door panel, a fuselage or a whole aircraft) needs to consider another
indirect parameter to assess the similarity through Equation (1). Such a parameter must include all the
characteristics of the different assembled parts. A proposal to solve the problem concerns considering
the specific weight per square meter or per cubic meter; in such a case, the exposed surface changes
according to the part analysed. An example is proposed considering a fuselage (Equation (2)):
" #
weight of fusulage kg
Distance_ParameterL 2, circular fusulage = (2)
πDL m2

where D is the diameter of the fuselage and L is the length of the aircraft.
In such an example, the surface must be considered as the enveloping surface of the cylinder in
which the cabin, the fuselage and the tail (without the wing extremities) are contained; the surface
considered is highlighted in orange in Figure 3.

Figure 3. An example of an enveloping cylinder.

Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 7 of 17

If a whole aircraft must be considered, then the surface of the wings must be included. Finally, the
similarity is identified using (1). The old part, which has the smallest distance to the new part, is the
most similar one.
Once the similarity calculation is concluded, the second step of the procedure can start. Starting
from this point, the “old” part will identify the element found to be the most similar one. Thus, the cost
estimation will be performed calculating some factors, which take into consideration the difference
between the new and the old part. In general, the ACM procedure requires the application of the
following equation:  
Cnew = Cold · Fp ·FM ·FC (3)

where:

• Cnew is the cost of the new part (considering production, maintenance or any other process);
• Cold is the cost of the most similar old part;
• Fp is the productivity factor that considers the production or the organizational improvements
adopted over the years which differ the new and old production process;
• FM is the miniaturisation factor that considers the differences in the geometrical shape;
• FC is the complexity factor that considers the shape complexity differences.

As previously asserted, the two parts can be compared if characterised by same material, the same
production technology and the same family. Thus, concerning the first factor Fp , the main difference
between the old and the new part production process consists of the cycle time. Moreover, a recognised
method, used to evaluate the process time variation due to the impact of the worker experience, is the
one based on the learning curves; starting from such considerations, the proposed model replaces the
productivity factor with the learning factor:

learning
Fp = FP (4)

According to [28], the most used learning function for the aerospace sector is the “Wright model”;
the analytical formula is reported below:

yN = C1 ·Nb −1 ≤ b ≤ 0 (5)

where:

• yN is the execution time for the N-th part, produced after N-1 other parts belonging to the
same family;
• C1 is the execution time of the first part;
• N is the number of parts completed at the instant of time considered;
• b is the learning rate.

The Wright model curve is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Learning curve trend.

Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 8 of 17

The formula to compute the value of the b parameter is reported below:

log (1 − r)
b= (6)
log(2)

Where, r is the learning rate for each doubling of operations performed. Typical values of the b
parameter are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Typical values of the b parameter.

r b
5%. −0.074
10% −0.152
20% −0.322
30% −0.514
40% −0.737

As reported in Equation (6), the b value is between −1 and 0, thus the extreme values of the time
function become:

• yN = C1 if b = 0;
• yN = C1 /N if b = −1.

The b parameter is related to the estimation of the learning factor, i.e., the reduction of the execution
time of one operation when the number of operations performed increases. It is important to notice
that for the aerospace sector the expected time reduction is 20% for each doubling of the number of
operations performed.
From the theoretical and practical point of view, the Wright model presents two limitations:

• The execution time goes to 0 for N→+∞.

• As presented by [28], the model is suitable only for manual operations, such as the maintenance
operations performed in the aerospace industry.

Thus, starting from Equation (6), the execution time for a maintenance action on a new part x can
be described as the execution time of an old part performed after N replications, expressed as yX (7).
The time to perform the last maintenance operation on an old similar part has to be provided by the
company in order to compute C1 (Equation (8)) and define the learning curve.

tnew,X = yX (7)

told,N
C1 = (8)
Nb
where:

• tnew,X is the execution time estimation for a maintenance service on the x-th new part; it is
calculated starting from the N previous operations performed before it is performed;
• told,N is the execution time of the last maintenance service performed on a similar old part.

Then, it is possible to apply the learning curve method through Equation (9).

tnew,X = C1 ·Xb (9)

Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 9 of 17

Later, a mean value is calculated, considering k maintenance services (Equation (10)); in practice,
not just one but a set of actions will be performed on the new part.
PN + k k
X=N+1 tnew,X
tnew,X = (10)
k
where:

• k is the number of parts belonging to the new batch to be maintained.

Finally, Fp can be calculated as the ratio between the average execution time of the new product
and the production time of the old one as illustrated in Equation (11).

tnew,X
Fp = (11)
told,N

As already anticipated, the second factor FM considers the differences in the geometrical shape.
Thus, for manufactured elements, FM can be calculated as the ratio between the external surface
of the new and the old parts (Equation (12)), considering such values easily available through the
CAD software. Pn
manufactured_parts Snew, i
FM = Pim=1 (12)
j=1 Sold, j

The sum for both the division terms results from the CAD files that generally compute the external
surface as the sum of multiple surfaces (i = 1,.., n surfaces for the new part and j = 1,.., m surfaces for
the old part).
For assembled parts, a different way to measure such a factor was identified. In fact, the
computation can be performed using (Equation (13)), where the weight w is used instead of the
geometrical properties.
assembled_parts Wnew
FM = (13)
Wold
Finally, the last corrective factor FC regards the complexity. As previously stated, the first
assumption is to compare parts with the same material, production process and family. Moreover, the
complexity is generally evaluated matching work-methods and technological complexity, information
complexity and shape complexity [29]. Starting from the considerations above, it is possible to affirm
that there are no significant difference in terms of complexity. Thus, the complexity factor can be
neglected (Equation (14)).
FC = 1 (14)

Obviously, the best solution will be the one with the smallest final maintenance cost Cnew .

5. Final Tool for Sustainability Evaluation

As already explained, the first purpose of the paper was to identify a new procedure able to
evaluate the economic performance of an aircraft during its service life. Thus, a new method to
estimate the maintenance costs in the early stage of the design process has been proposed. Starting
from such result, a sustainability decision support tool has been structured, balancing the economic
benefits with the environmental ones; the final aim is to predict the service life sustainability of a new
design solution.
Concerning the environmental assessment, a new index has been identified, starting from some
considerations; first, the fuel consumption has a strong impact on the environmental performance.
Moreover, in order to delete the possible bias resulting from different sizes of the aircraft, it is important
to identify an indicator able to compare different aircrafts with different service loads, tank capacities
and autonomy. Thus, the environmental indicator w0 is defined as the ratio between the maximum
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 10 of 17

payload weight (kg) and the mean consumption of the aircraft [l/km] during a single transport (Equation
(15)). " #
SL SL·A kg·km
w0 = TC = (15)
TC lt
A
where:

• SL is the service load (SL), i.e. the payload weight for each flight (kg);
• TC is the maximum tank capacity linked to the consumption of gasoline for each flight (L);
• A is the distance (km) that the aircraft can cover with TC.

In such a case, the higher the value of w0 , the better the solution is.
As already asserted, the sustainability evaluation of different design solutions must consider the
trade-off between the two perspectives and their different trends. In fact, the best maintenance cost is
the smallest one, while w0 has to increase to minimise its impact, as reported in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Maintenance cost and w0 impact on the green design solution.

Starting from such behaviours, one a-dimensional function has been defined, in order to identify
the greenest design solution. Finally, the most suitable solution will be the one with the minimum
economic and environmental impact, summarised as follows (Equation (16)). Moreover, considering
the normalization proposed, the better result will be the one with the smallest value, with a maximum
score equal to two.
( !)
Cnew,i w0,min
Greenest Design Solution = min + (16)
i=1, n Cnew,max w0,i

where:

• i is the counter of all the design solutions,

• Cnew,i is the maintenance cost of the i-th design solution;
• Cnew,min is the minimum maintenance cost among all the n design solutions;
• w0,min is the minimum ratio w0 between all the n design solutions,
• w0,i is the ratio w0 of the i-th design solution

6. Numerical Application to the Aerospace Industry

In order to test the feasibility of the framework proposed and to show its simple application to the
aerospace industry, the presented tool was applied using a real database. The database was populated
with information derived from several producers, in terms of geometrical characteristics, autonomy,
tank capacity, and maintenance costs for the service life. Data were recovered using the scientific
literature [23,25,30,31]. Appendix A summarizes the input data recovered and stocked before starting
the analysis.
In order to validate the method proposed, three similar aircrafts were chosen to compare and
identify the best green solution to design; size, autonomy and service payload have been considered
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 11 of 17

in order to make a suitable choice. The three final aircrafts to evaluate are: (i) Boeing 777-300LR, (ii)
Boeing 747-8I, (iii) McDonnell MD-12. In such a case, input data were recovered and stocked in a
second database (Table 3).

Table 3. DB containing data on new parts.

Parameter Boeing 777-300LR Boeing 747-8I McDonnell MD-12

Diameter Fuselage (m) 6.20 6.50 7.39
Height Fuselage (m) 8.70 9.84 8.51
Length (m) 63.73 76.25 63.40
Wing Width (m) 64.80 68.40 64.92
Wings Surface (m2 ) 436.80 554.00 543.10
Operative Weight—OW (kg) 145,150.00 220,128.00 187,650.00
Service Load (kg) 63,957.00 76,067.00 91,160.00
Gasoline Tank Capacity—TC
181,283.00 238,610.00 195,000.00
[lt]
Autonomy—A (km) 15,845.00 14,310.00 14,825.00
Aircraft maintained—N 130.00 160.00 120.00
Initial Maintenance
operation time—T (h/check 130.00 160.00 150.00
C)
Maintenance cost [$] $54,600.0.00 $74,000,000.00 $66,400,000.00

Following the framework described in the previous section, the procedure starts with the
maintenance cost computation; the first step concerns the similarity identification using the Euclidean
distance computation. Since such a numerical example considers the whole aircraft and its total
maintenance costs, the similarity index is computed using (2), and assuming that the exposed surface
can be calculated as the enveloping cylinder generated by the fuselage. The three aircrafts have a
weight per square meter equal to (i) 86.47 kg/m2 , (ii) 104,24 kg/m2 and (iii) 93.10 kg/m2 , which have
been computed as the sum of the wing surfaces and the envelop of the cylinder of the fuselage. Thus,
calculating the distance parameter (DP) as in (2), and for each aircraft reported in Appendix A, it is
possible to compute the distance between each solution and the three aircrafts examined; the best
similarities are underlined and reported in Table 4. The remaining computations are presented in
Appendix B.

Table 4. Euclidean distance between different design solutions.

McDonnell
Aircraft DP Boeing 777-300LR Boeing 747-8I
MD-12
Airbus A380 166.95 29.71 1.79 20.27
Boeing 777F 136.50 0.73 28.66 10.17
Boeing 747-8F 147.90 10.67 17.25 1.23

The following step regards the cost estimation, starting from the computation of the three
corrective factors described in the previous section. Thus, the productivity factor is calculated for each
design solution.
T·(N + 1)−0.322 24.0216
Fp,1 = −0.322
= = 0.99911 (17)
T·(N) 24.0431

T·(N + 1)−0.322 42.2916

Fp,2 = −0.322
= = 0.99364 (18)
T·(N) 42.5621

T·(N + 1)−0.322 40.5599

Fp,3 = −0.322
= = 0.99733 (19)
T·(N) 40.6684
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 12 of 17

Then, the miniaturization factor computation is shown below.

OWnew 145150
FM,1 = = = 1.0054 (20)
OWold 144379

OWnew 220128
FM,2 = = = 0.79469 (21)
OWold 277000
OWnew 187650
FM,3 = = = 0.95191 (22)
OWold 197131
Finally, the final maintenance cost is estimated using Equation (3), together with the absolute error
derived from the procedure tested.

Cnew,1 = 50500000 $·0.99911·1.0054·1 = 50724348 $ (23)

Cnew,2 = 86000000 $·0.99364·0.79469·1 = 67908590 $ (24)

Cnew,3 = 72300000 $·0.99733·0.95191·1 = 68639073 $ (25)

In fact, the absolute error can be calculated starting from the real cost of maintenance obtained in
practice and the amount reported in Table 3. Table 5 summarises the results obtained for each solution.

Table 5. Absolute error of the maintenance cost estimation procedure.

Aircraft Error
Boeing 777-300LR +7%
Boeing 747-8I +8%
McDonnell MD-12 −3%
Mean error 6%

Once the maintenance costs are calculated, the environmental indicator w0 is calculated for each
design solution using (15); the resulting values are reported in Table 6.

Table 6. w0 for the three design solutions.

Aircraft w0 (kgkm/lt)
Boeing 777-300LR 5590.15
Boeing 747-8I 4561.92
McDonnell MD-12 6930.50

Finally, Equation (16) is applied and the final index is derived (Table 7).

Table 7. Green Evaluation for the three design solution.

Aircraft w0 (kgkm/lt) Maintenance Cost ($) Green Index

Boeing 777-300LR 5590.15 507,243.48 1,555,065
Boeing 747-8I 4561.92 679,085.90 1,989,358
McDonnell MD-12 6930.50 686,390.73 1,658,238

Table 7 and Figure 6 show that the greenest solution is the first one (Boeing 777-300LR), i.e the one
with the minimum green index value. This result was achieved using a quantitative approach based
on both the environmental and economic dimensions. Splitting the two contributors, the first design
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 13 of 17

solution provides the best economic benefit. Alternatively, the third aircraft results have the worst
economic performance but the best green solution; nonetheless, comparing the first and last solutions,
the McDonnell MD-12 is characterized by a worse performance in terms of km travelled with one liter
of gasoline.

Figure 6. Results of the green assessment of the design for three different solutions.

The final consideration is on the validation of the procedure proposed. A comparison with the
results of other models is not possible because of the absence of different approaches to compare. In
any case, the environmental index takes into consideration the fuel consumption, recognized by the
sector as the most important factor impacting environmental sustainability. Concerning the economic
indicator, the average error (6%) shows an acceptable approximation. Therefore, the whole method
can be considered as a suitable approach to assess the green level of a solution in the design stage.

7. Final Remarks and Conclusions

The paper intends to face an open issue on aircraft sustainability, i.e. the possibility for a designer to
identify the greenest solution among different alternatives. As clearly discussed in the first paragraphs,
there is a significant lack in the international literature of quantitative approaches, able to evaluate the
economic and environmental sustainability of different design solutions. Thus, this paper tries to cover
such a gap by defining a new green assessment procedure that is easier to implement in the first stage
of the design process, which suffers by a great lack of information.
Based on this assumption, a new assessment framework was proposed, which simply needs very
little information in order to calculate the environmental impact of the designed solution. Moreover,
a new method is defined to estimate the maintenance costs starting from very simple data on the
geometry and the weight of the aircraft. In this way, the designer can combine and balance two main
aspects, which influence the sustainability of the aircraft service life. The method has also demonstrated
to be applicable and easy to implement.
Since the model has been developed to be applied in the preliminary phase of the design process,
the main limitation is related to possible variances that could result during the next design steps. Thus,
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 14 of 17

the numerical values could change when the designer will have available more detailed information.
In any case, the procedure was validated and it shows a good approximation and robustness, thus the
indicators should maintain the same priority. Finally, future researches could improve the model, also
considering the impact of new sensor technologies on aircraft maintenance costs.
Lastly, it is worth underlining that this study has some limitations on the procedure implemented,
which could be improved using different types of multi-criteria decision making methods such as
the fuzzy-AHP [32], the AHP-TOPSIS [33] or other optimization approaches with several criteria to
assess [34]. Thus, future works could be planned to compare the proposed methodology with different
approaches used in other fields, as previously reported.
Finally, another possible future research could explore the possibility to enlarge the type and the
nature of the factors for the sustainability assessment; this possibility could lead the model to also
consider the social dimension.

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, M.F. and R.M.; methodology, M.F. and R.A.; validation, M.C., M.R.
and P.M.; formal analysis, R.A.; data curation, M.F.; writing—original draft preparation, M.F.; writing—review
and editing, M.R., R.M. and M.C.; supervision, R.M.; project administration, R.M.; All authors have read and
agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the European Commission under the H2020 Framework Clean
Sky JTI—project Mascot, Grant agreement n◦ 864154.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Appendix A

Table A1. DB containing data on old parts (part 1).

Diameter Height Fuselage Wing Width Wings Operative

Aircraft Length (m)
Fuselage (m) (m) (m) Surface (m2 ) Weight—OW (kg)
Airbus A380 7.14 10.84 72.57 79.75 845.00 277,000.00
Airbus A300B2 5.64 7.71 53.61 44.83 260.00 85,910.00
Airbus A300B4 5.64 7.71 53.61 44.83 260.00 88,505.00
Airbus A300-600 5.64 7.63 53.85 44.84 260.00 87,500.00
Airbus A300-600F 5.64 7.63 54.08 44.84 260.00 81,707.00
Airbus A350-900 5.96 8.60 66.80 64.75 442.00 142,400.00
Airbus A380-1000 5.96 8.60 73.79 64.75 464.30 155,000.00
Airbus A318-100 4.14 5.93 31.45 34.10 122.40 39,500.00
Airbus A319-100 4.14 5.97 33.84 34.10 124.00 40,800.00
Airbus A320-200 4.14 5.97 37.57 34.10 124.00 42,600.00
Airbus A321-200 4.14 5.97 44.51 34.10 128.00 48,500.00
Boeing 777-200 6.20 8.68 63.73 60.93 427.80 135,550.00
Boeing 777-200ER 6.20 8.68 63.73 60.93 427.80 138,100.00
Boeing 777-300 6.20 8.68 73.86 60.93 427.80 160,530.00
Boeing 777-300ER 6.20 8.78 73.86 64.80 436.80 167,829.00
Boeing 777F 6.20 8.78 63.73 64.80 436.80 144,379.00
Boeing 747-8F 6.50 9.84 76.25 68.40 554.00 197,131.00
Boeing 787-8 5.77 8.03 56.72 60.12 377.00 119,950.00
Boeing 787-9 5.77 7.42 62.81 60.12 377.00 128,850.00
McDonnell MD-11 6.00 8.69 61.20 51.97 338.90 128,808.00
McDonnell MD-11ER 6.00 8.69 61.20 51.97 338.90 132,049.00
McDonnell MD-11CF 6.00 8.69 61.20 51.97 338.90 130,768.00
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 15 of 17

Table A2. DB containing data on old parts (part 2).

Initial Maintenance
Service Load Gasoline Tank Autonomy—A Aircraft Maintenance
Aircraft Operation Time—T
(kg)—SL Capacity—TC (lt) (km) Maintained—N Cost
(h/Check C]
Airbus A380 84,000.00 323,546.00 14,800.00 50.00 150.00 $86,000,000.00
Airbus A300B2 37,980.00 44,000.00 6300.00 650.00 120.00 $48,762,000.00
Airbus A300B4 45,000.00 44,000.00 6670.00 640.00 115.00 $49,050,000.00
Airbus A300-600 41,500.00 68,160.00 7500.00 600.00 135.00 $47,000,000.00
Airbus A300-600F 54,600.00 68,160.00 7500.00 600.00 125.00 $46,890,000.00
Airbus A350-900 53,300.00 138,000.00 15,000.00 250.00 150.00 $78,804,000.00
Airbus A380-1000 68,000.00 156,000.00 16,100.00 40.00 160.00 $83,000,000.00
Airbus A318-100 15,000.00 23,859.00 5750.00 420.00 95.00 $23,200,000.00
Airbus A319-100 17,700.00 23,859.00 6950.00 450.00 100.00 $24,150,000.00
Airbus A320-200 19,900.00 23,859.00 6200.00 460.00 100.00 $26,843,000.00
Airbus A321-200 25,300.00 23,700.00 5950.00 400.00 100.00 $29,456,000.00
Boeing 777-200 54,920.00 117,300.00 9705.00 520.00 140.00 $50,500,000.00
Boeing 777-200ER 60,000.00 117,300.00 13,085.00 560.00 145.00 $54,000,000.00
Boeing 777-300 64,000.00 169,210.00 11,170.00 540.00 150.00 $53,200,000.00
Boeing 777-300ER 69,853.00 181,283.00 13,650.00 400.00 156.00 $56,800,000.00
Boeing 777F 103,737.00 181,283.00 9205.00 360.00 160.00 $50,500,000.00
Boeing 747-8F 132,360.00 226,118.00 7630.00 120.00 190.00 $72,300,000.00
Boeing 787-8 43,318.00 126,206.00 13,620.00 190.00 140.00 $65,200,000.00
Boeing 787-9 52,587.00 126,429.00 14,140.00 250.00 145.00 $67,300,000.00
McDonnell MD-11 52,362.00 146,173.00 11,500.00 150.00 120.00 $75,890,000.00
McDonnell MD-11ER 49,391.00 157,529.00 13,410.00 100.00 120.00 $74,569,000.00
McDonnell MD-11CF 73,942.00 146,173.00 14,908.00 100.00 120.00 $72,000,000.00

Appendix B

Table A3. Euclidean distance between different design solutions.

Aircraft DP Boeing 777-300LR Boeing 747-8I McDonnell MD-12

Airbus A300B2 116.86 20.37 48.30 29.81
Airbus A300B4 120.39 16.84 44.77 26.28
Airbus A300-600 118.68 18.55 46.48 27.99
Airbus A300-600F 110.52 26.71 54.64 36.16
Airbus A350-900 133.38 3.85 31.78 13.30
Airbus A380-1000 134.15 3.08 31.00 12.52
Airbus A318-100 120.79 16.44 44.36 25.88
Airbus A319-100 118.55 18.68 46.61 28.12
Airbus A320-200 115.63 21.60 49.53 31.05
Airbus A321-200 116.15 21.08 49.01 30.53
Boeing 777-200 129.25 7.98 35.90 17.42
Boeing 777-200ER 131.68 5.54 33.47 14.99
Boeing 777-300 139.91 2.68 25.25 6.77
Boeing 777-300ER 145.13 7.90 20.03 1.55
Boeing 787-8 134.58 2.65 30.58 12.10
Boeing 787-9 136.13 1.10 29.03 10.54
McDonnell MD-11 140.63 3.40 24.53 6.04
McDonnell
144.17 6.94 20.99 2.51
MD-11ER
McDonnell
142.77 5.54 22.39 3.90
MD-11CF

References
1. Upham, P.; Thomas, C.; Gillingwater, D.; Raper, D. Environmental capacity and airport operations: Current
issues and future prospects. J. Air Transp. Manag. 2003, 9, 145–151. [CrossRef]
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 16 of 17

2. Wolfe, P.J.; Yim, S.H.; Lee, G.; Ashok, A.; Barrett, S.R.; Waitz, I.A. Near-airport distribution of the environmental
costs of aviation. Transp. Policy 2014, 34, 102–108. [CrossRef]
3. Grampella, M.; Martini, G.; Scotti, D.; Zambon, G. The factors affecting pollution and noise environmental
costs of the current aircraft fleet: An econometric analysis. Transp. Res. Part A Policy Pract. 2016, 92, 310–325.
[CrossRef]
4. Dong, Q.; Chen, F.; Chen, Z. Airports and air pollutions: Empirical evidence from China. Transp. Policy 2020,
99, 385–395. [CrossRef]
5. Calado, E.A.; Leite, M.; Silva, A. Selecting composite materials considering cost and environmental impact in
the early phases of aircraft structure design. J. Clean. Prod. 2018, 186, 113–122. [CrossRef]
6. Baharozu, E.; Soykan, G.; Ozerdem, M.B. Future aircraft concept in terms of energy efficiency and
environmental factors. Energy 2017, 140, 1368–1377. [CrossRef]
7. Gheorghe, A.; Zolghadri, A.; Cieslak, J.; Goupil, P.; Dayre, R.; Le Berre, H. Model-based approaches for fast
and robust fault detection in an aircraft control surface servo loop: From theory to flight tests [applications
of control]. IEEE Control Syst. Mag. 2013, 33, 20–84.
8. Molent, L.; Haddad, A. A critical review of available composite damage growth test data under fatigue
loading and implications for aircraft sustainment. Compos. Struct. 2020, 232, 111568. [CrossRef]
9. Sahin, B.; Soylu, A. Multi-layer, multi-segment iterative optimization for maritime supply chain operations
in a dynamic fuzzy environment. IEEE Access 2020, 8, 144993–145005. [CrossRef]
10. Sahin, B.; Soylu, A. Intuitionistic fuzzy analytical network process models for maritime supply chain. Appl.
Soft Comput. 2020, 96, 106614. [CrossRef]
11. Roskam, J. Airplane Design: Airplane Cost Estimation: Design, Development, Manufacturing and Operating;
Darcorporation: Lawrence, KS, USA, 1990.
12. Raymer, D.P. Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach; American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc.:
Reston, VA, USA, 2018.
13. Heller, J.E.; Löwer, M.; Feldhusen, J. Requirement based future product cost estimation using lifecycle
assessment data. Procedia CIRP 2014, 15, 520–525. [CrossRef]
14. Ameli, M.; Mansour, S.; Ahmadi-Javid, A. A sustainable method for optimizing product design with trade-off
between life cycle cost and environmental impact. Environ. Dev. Sustain. 2017, 19, 2443–2456. [CrossRef]
15. Shaukat, S.; Katscher, M.; Wu, C.L.; Delgado, F.; Larrain, H. Aircraft line maintenance scheduling and
optimisation. J. Air Transp. Manag. 2020, 89, 101914. [CrossRef]
16. Dong, T.; Kim, N.H. Cost-Effectiveness of Structural Health Monitoring in Fuselage Maintenance of the Civil
Aviation Industry. Aerospace 2018, 5, 87. [CrossRef]
17. Dong, T.; Haftka, R.T.; Kim, N.H. Advantages of Condition-Based Maintenance over Scheduled Maintenance
using Structural Health Monitoring System. In Reliability and Maintenance—An Overview of Cases; IntechOpen:
London, UK, 2019.
18. Yiwei, W.A.N.G.; Christian, G.O.G.U.; Binaud, N.; Christian, B.E.S.; Haftka, R.T. A cost driven predictive
maintenance policy for structural airframe maintenance. Chin. J. Aeronaut. 2017, 30, 1242–1257.
19. Pattabhiraman, S.; Gogu, C.; Kim, N.H.; Haftka, R.T.; Bes, C. Skipping unnecessary structural airframe
maintenance using an on-board structural health monitoring system. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part O J. Risk
Reliab. 2012, 226, 549–560. [CrossRef]
20. Lin, L.; Luo, B.; Zhong, S. Development and application of maintenance decision-making support system for
aircraft fleet. Adv. Eng. Softw. 2017, 114, 192–207. [CrossRef]
21. Lin, L.; Luo, B.; Zhong, S. Multi-objective decision-making model based on CBM for an aircraft fleet with
reliability constraint. Int. J. Prod. Res. 2018, 56, 4831–4848. [CrossRef]
22. Chen, X.; Ren, H.; Bil, C.; Sun, Y. Integration of structural health monitoring with scheduled maintenance of
aircraft composite structures. Int. J. Agile Syst. Manag. 2015, 8, 264–283. [CrossRef]
23. Sun, J.; Chen, D.; Li, C.; Yan, H. Integration of scheduled structural health monitoring with airline maintenance
program based on risk analysis. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part O J. Risk Reliab. 2018, 232, 92–104. [CrossRef]
24. Curran, R.; Raghunathan, S.; Price, M. Review of aerospace engineering cost modelling: The genetic causal
approach. Prog. Aerosp. Sci. 2004, 40, 487–534. [CrossRef]
Sustainability 2020, 12, 10120 17 of 17

25. Pattabhiraman, S.; Kim, N.H.; Haftka, R. Effects of Uncertainty Reduction Measures by Structural
Health Monitoring on Safety and Lifecycle Costs of Aircrafts. In Proceedings of the 51st
AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference 18th
AIAA/ASME/AHS Adaptive Structures Conference, Orlando, FL, USA, 12–15 April 2010; p. 2677.
26. Shishko, R. Developing analogy cost estimates for space missions. In Proceedings of the Space 2004
Conference and Exhibit, San Diego, CA, USA, 28 September 2004; p. 6012.
27. Angelis, L.; Stamelos, I. A simulation tool for efficient analogy based cost estimation. Empir. Softw. Eng.
2000, 5, 35–68. [CrossRef]
28. Anzanello, M.J.; Fogliatto, F.S. Learning curve models and applications: Literature review and research
directions. Int. J. Ind. Ergon. 2011, 41, 573–583. [CrossRef]
29. Fera, M.; Macchiaroli, R.; Fruggiero, F.; Lambiase, A. A new perspective for production process analysis
using additive manufacturing—Complexity vs production volume. Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 2018, 95,
673–685. [CrossRef]
30. Pattabhiraman, S.; Gogu, C.; Kim, N.H.; Haftka, R.; Bes, C. Synchronizing condition-based maintenance with
necessary scheduled maintenance. In Proceedings of the 53rd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures,
Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference 20th AIAA/ASME/AHS Adaptive Structures Conference 14th
AIAA, Honolulu, HI, USA, 23–26 April 2012; p. 1596.
31. Chen, X.; Bil, C.; Ren, H. Influence of SHM Techniques on Scheduled Maintenance for Aircraft Composite
Structures. In Proceedings of the 14th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference,
Atlanta, GA, USA, 16–20 June 2014; p. 3264.
32. Sahin, B.; Kum, S. Risk assessment of Arctic navigation by using improved fuzzy-AHP approach. Int. J.
Marit. Eng. 2015, 157, 241.
33. Afshar, A.; Mariño, M.A.; Saadatpour, M.; Afshar, A. Fuzzy TOPSIS multi-criteria decision analysis applied
to Karun reservoirs system. Water Resour. Manag. 2011, 25, 545–563. [CrossRef]
34. Sahin, B.; Senol, Y.E.; Bulut, E.; Duru, O. Optimizing technology selection in maritime logistics. Res. Logist.
Prod. 2015, 5, 299–309.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional
affiliations.

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).