Aircraft and crew scheduling for fractional ownership programs

Fractional aircraft ownership programs, where individuals or corporations own a fraction of an aircraft, have revolutionized the corporate aviation industry. Fractional management companies (FMC) manage all aspects of aircraft operations enabling the owners to enjoy the benefits of private aviation without the associated responsibilities. We describe here the development of a scheduling decision support tool for a leading FMC. We present mathematical models, exact and heuristic solution methods. Our computational results using real and randomly generated data indicate that these models are quite effective in finding optimal or near-optimal solutions. The first phase of the implementation of one of these models at the FMC led to a significant improvement in effective utilization of the aircraft, reduction of costs due to reduced empty moves, and hence increased profits.     

基于稀疏表示的可见光遥感图像飞机检测算法

为解决当前遥感图像飞机检测方法在复杂背景下准确率低,实现旋转不变困难的问题,结合图像稀疏表示原理,提出一种基于稀疏表示的飞机检测算法.该算法首先利用飞机是刚性目标且具有明显几何外观的特点,构建飞机几何原子库;然后建立飞机轮廓几何逼近的最优化方程,在稀疏表示原理框架下,得到飞机轮廓最优的几何部件组合;最后,以星型结构的部件模型为框架,生成待检测图像的目标显著图并根据显著图定位出飞机.实验结果表明,稀疏表示方法能自适应选取飞机部件,部件数目较少且不易受光照、颜色和复杂背景的影响.与现有算法相比,本文算法准确率达90%以上,检测速度有较大的提高.     

Noise mitigation action plan of Pisa civil and military airport and its effects on people exposure

The “Galileo Galilei” airport is a civil and military airport quite close to central Pisa. Although the airport brings benefits in terms of tourism and different types of income, the air traffic growth exacerbates the exposition to aircraft noise. This could significantly affect public health. To this day, a small number of studies takes into account the standard indicators of Europe by considering noise emission data for military aircrafts. We estimated the noise impact produced by the airport and we evaluated the related exposed population by using the Integrated Noise Model (INM). The noise power levels of both commercial and military flights have been considered as an input to the model. Predicted levels were validated by means of a noise-monitoring network. A new tracking system (AirNav Radar) that captures Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals emitted by each aircraft has been used to emulate takeoff and landing procedures. This improves the accuracy of the input to the model. We simulated noise maps for present and future scenarios, including those following the application of noise reduction measures. For each situation, we also estimated the exposure of the population and the percentages of highly annoyed and highly sleep disturbed people. We show the utility of AIS data and their specific elaboration to draw up noise abatement measures in order to reduce the noise impact on population and allow the airport development.     

Influence of stiffeners on plate vibration and radiated noise excited by turbulent boundary layers

The influence of stiffeners on plate vibration and noise radiation induced by turbulent boundary layers is investigated by wind tunnel measurements. Plates with and without stiffeners are tested under the flow speed of 60 m/s, 71 m/s and 86 m/s, respectively. The stiffeners are set either perpendicular or parallel to the direction of the free stream. Measured vibration and noise levels are compared with theoretical calculations, where wall pressure cross-spectra are described by the Corcos model. For the plates tested, it is evident that stiffeners perpendicular to the direction of the free stream could increase noise radiation, but have almost no influence on vibration level of plates.     

CONSURF系统中机身造型曲线的若干几何性质

本文用计算几何学的观点对Ａ．Ａ．Ｂａｌｌ在前英车航空公司研制成功的ＣＯＮＳＵＲＦ系统进行分析，证明了这一系统的机身造型曲线具有包络性质，分段性质，变差缩减性质，奇点拐点分布性质和保凸性质。     

A simulation method of aircraft plumes for real-time imaging

Real-time infrared simulation technology can provide a large number of infrared images under different conditions to support the design, test and evaluation of a system having infrared imaging equipment with very low costs. By synthesizing heat transfer, infrared physics, fluid mechanics and computer graphics, a real-time infrared simulation method is proposed based on the method of characteristics to predict the infrared feature of aircraft plumes, which tries to obtain a good balance between simulation precision and computation efficiency. The temperature and pressure distribution in the under-expansion status can be rapidly solved with dynamically changing flight statuses and engine working states. And a modified C–G (Curtis–Godson) spectral band model that combines the plume streamlines with the conventional C–G spectral band model was implemented to calculate the non-uniformly distributed radiation parameters inside a plume field. The simulation result was analyzed and compared with the CFD++, which validates the credibility and efficiency of the proposed simulation method.     

基于LPV的航空发动机鲁棒变增益控制

随着我国现代化进程的不断加快,航天航空技术标准越来越高,对于航空发动机运转工况的鲁棒性和适应性提出了更高的要求。传统的航空发动机变增益设计步骤繁琐,不能将发动机置于整个航空器的运转去考虑设计,使发动机变增益缺乏相应的稳定性和适应性,易出现系统问题。为此,提出一般基于LPV的航空发动机鲁棒变增益控制系统,依据航空发动机结构参数,考虑到航空器在空中负载特性,计算出新的约束极点 模糊变增益,在航空器发动机工作范围连续增益,避免了传统增益切换情况,在转速控制上确定误差等因素,将非线性控制设计分解为多个线性子问题,使航空器控制系统能够沿着LPV参数轨迹保持良好的运转,保持稳定性能。仿真实验证明,提出的基于LPV的航空发动机鲁棒变增益控制系统控制效果优于传统方法,在航空器发动机转速改变时,控制精度能够满足要求 ,改变航空器负载时,有效对目标进行变增益控制。提出的控制方法对航空发动机鲁棒变增益控制问题提供了新的解决办法,具有较大应用价值。     

A new indicator to measure the noise impact around airports: The Real Estate Tolerance Level (RETL) – Case study around Charles de Gaulle Airport

The Community Tolerance Level (CTL) is a new indicator which characterizes the impact of aircraft noise around local airport. It corresponds to the exposure sound level (DENL or DNL) where 50% of the population is highly annoyed. Inspired by this indicator, this paper aims at calculating the Real Estate Tolerance Level (RETL) which corresponds to the exposure sound level where a property price is 50% depreciated compared to the price of the same property which would be situated in an area whose DENL is below 50 dB(A). The use of a notarial database analyzed with the Hedonic Price Model (HPM) made it possible to calculate the percentage of property price depreciation around CDG airport, with 1-dB steps of DENL, and so far to calculate the RETL. 19,891 house transactions and 23,264 apartments have been localized with a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and crossed with the Sound Environment Curves provided by Airport of Paris. The RETL value for single houses and for apartments around CDG is 75.8 dB. It is comparable to the mean CTL value which has been estimated to 73.3 dB from the DNL data of 43 airports over the world (about 73.9 dB from DENL data). The RETL is predictable without field survey and could characterize the impact of aircraft noise around local airports. It could be a good indicator to follow the evolution of population tolerance over the years.     

“Optimization of aircraft maintenance/support infrastructure using genetic algorithms—level of repair analysis”

Level of repair analysis (LORA) is an approach used during the design stage of complex equipment for analysis of the cost effectiveness of competing maintenance strategies. LORA is carried as a part of the life cycle cost and cost of ownership analysis and plays a significant role in minimizing the life cycle cost and cost of ownership of the capital equipment. Since many purchasing decisions of complex equipment are based on cost of ownership, it has become essential to carry out LORA to compete in the market. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model for LORA and propose a solution methodology based on genetic algorithms. The concept is illustrated using a hypothetical aircraft engine.     

Effects of multiple blade interaction on the containment of blade fragments during a rotor failure

A finite element analysis is used to study the impact and the containment aspects of rotor blade fragments that are produced during a aircraft jet engine rotor failure. The impact and containment studies are performed on a ring-type containment structure and various fragment types are considered in this study. For each type of fragment, the ring thickness is varied incrementally and the ring response, residual kinetic energy level of the fragments, magnitude of impact forces and the overall containment or failure are determined. First, only a single fragment is considered and the rotor is assumed to contain no other blades. Next, the remaining blades are introduced and the effects of multiple collisions with the other blades on the containment are analyzed. The explicit, nonlinear finite element code Dyna3d is used for the numerical computations in this study and the results are compared with the experimental results performed on a T58 rotor at the spin facility of the Naval Air Propulsion Test Center.