Modeling complex aviation systems - the eco-design tool EcoSky

With the growing environmental awareness in society, the demand for sustainable products and services increases. Hence especially in the expanding aviation sector, a reduction of the ecological impacts is intended to improve the aviation's ecological footprint. Modelling a whole life cycle inventory in a LCA study compliant with the ISO 14040 requires comprehensive expert knowledge. Furthermore aircrafts are complex systems with millions of different parts and various, aviation specific materials. To enable non-experts with little or no LCA knowledge like aircraft designers to assess the environmental impacts of already existing and also of conceptual aircrafts by the method of LCA, the web-based Tool EcoSky was developed with an easy-to-use user interface. In this Tool, the complex LCI modelling is decoupled from the design process. The presentation highlights the characteristics of the aerospace sector and how the EcoSky Tool deals with the specific difficulties.