Clean Sky

Clean Sky is the most ambitious aeronautical research programme ever launched in Europe. Its mission is to develop breakthrough technologies to significantly increase the environmental performances of airplanes and air transport, resulting in less noisy and more fuel efficient aircraft.

The Clean Sky Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) was born in 2008 and represents a Public-Private Partnership between the European Commission and the industry. It is managed by the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking (CSJU) until 31 December 2017.

The CSJU will deliver demonstrators in all segments of civil air transport, grouped into six technological areas called Integrated Technology Demonstrators (ITD). A simulation network called the Technology Evaluator (TE) will assess the performance of the technologies thus developed.

The aim of the TE is to assess the environmental impacts and benefits of the overall Clean Sky project output. These impacts will be estimated using fuel burn, emissions and noise pollution related metrics as well as on-board energy management and life cycle issues. The two scenarios with and without Clean Sky technologies will be compared towards the ACARE (Advisory Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe) environmental goals.

Using the Fraunhofer CAST Vehicle simulation tool the influence of new aircraft technologies on the necessary ground handling processes at an airport is examined. The simulation results and data are generated based on a model with typical airport infrastructure, flight plan and load data. Simulating the standard ground handling processes the reference aircraft will be compared with its corresponding concept aircraft. TE gets input data for its life cycle assessment from CAST Vehicle such as average number of kilometers driven by motorized ground handling vehicles separated according to needed vehicle type and quantity.

CO2 reduction

emission control

life cycle mediation

large scale, international research