Ansys’ R&D manager, Donna Dykeman looks at how the aerospace supply chain can best harness data to optimise materials selection.

Increasingly, we are coming face to face with the realities of climate change. From temperature records being broken to extreme weather events causing chaos and destruction, it is becoming clearer every day that significant changes throughout our economy will be needed if we are to meet our ambitious climate targets.

Currently, the aerospace industry accounts for 2-3% of global carbon emissions. However, that could rise to 22% by 2050. As a result, The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has urged countries to cooperate further in order to reach a long-term aspirational goal (LTAG) of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Although the helicopter industry contributes less than 1% of this figure, pound for pound they emit significant amounts of CO₂. For example, estimates from the tourist helicopters that fly over New York put emissions per hour at 950lbs of CO₂ which is over 40 times more than that of an average car.

Clearly, if the industry at large is to meet this ambitious target, there is lots of work to be done throughout every sector. There is a huge focus across the aerospace spectrum on areas such as sustainable aviation fuels and electrification, along with wider efforts to impact demand such as increased education, changes in habits and carbon taxes. However, one area that has the potential to make a huge impact is that of the choice of materials, manufacturing decisions and processes that are employed throughout production.

Building a plane or a helicopter involves sourcing an enormous number of materials and components. For example, the Boeing 747 requires more than six million parts from suppliers all over the world. When choosing and then sourcing materials, there are many factors that must be considered such as strength, durability, damage tolerance and weight. Materials must then be thought of in terms of their safety due to strict regulations. And this is all whilst always paying close attention to manufacturing and maintenance costs. With the industry’s net-zero targets in mind, how can sustainability considerations effectively be incorporated into what is already an incredibly complex process involving many trade-offs?

At the heart of design

Eco-design involves placing environmental considerations at the heart of all stages of the product development process. This means that the environmental impact is balanced with both the ecological and economic requirements of any product that is being produced alongside the materials decisions. 80% of all product-related environmental impacts in the aerospace industry are locked in at the concept design phase, when materials and manufacturing decisions are made, and the efficiency of the overall system is revealed.

That’s why it is crucial to integrate eco-design processes as soon as possible. Integration at the beginning of the production process ensures that the materials’ energy and potential emissions from manufacturing are pinpointed, meaning that the final product’s sustainable impact can be evaluated in less time and at a lower cost.

At present, this is not often the case. This is because it is difficult to perform full life-cycle assessments (LCAs) on the environmental impact of a product until after it has been manufactured. This cost and time to deliver an LCA report is untenable from a commercial standpoint, due to the sheer number of materials and parts that go into any one aerospace product.

Data-optimised selections

Determining environmental performance early in product development could help produce more efficient plane or helicopter products, accelerate decision making and reduce time-to-market. To make this process less complex, programmes have been developed that contain technical, cost, and environmental data and wider sustainability information, which is key to making informed material and process selection and substitution decisions as early as possible in the design process. These programmes include tools that enable:

• Mapping of substances, materials and manufacturing processes in a Bill of Materials against many indicators such as how much water and energy they require to produce, social constraints such as slavery and conflict, and legislated lists of restricted substances. This gives much clearer insight into the sustainability costs associated with extraction and manufacturing. This is then tailored and filtered depending on the specific needs of the user.
• Screening of harmful substances to determine what can be used and where in order to comply with shifting regulations. This first screening is critical to directing material and process choices for product design and requires ongoing checking against continually updated lists of restricted substances across many regions.
• Hot spot analysis is used to present trade-offs for every eco-design choice by comparing the environmental impact against a benchmark design, and to identify the highest impact for materials and process and/or design change.

The result of this is profound. By using data, engineers are able to evaluate the technical performance, alongside the environmental impact, much more efficiently and consistently across the business over the lifecycle of the product. The resulting reduction in time to assign environmental data to designs is estimated to be anywhere from 10 to 100 times.

By leveraging data to optimise material selection at the beginning of the design process, aerospace manufacturers can balance the environmental impact with both the ecological and economic requirements of any product. Integrating eco-design into the manufacturing process will prove integral in making strides towards the aerospace industry’s ambitious sustainability goals.

www.ansys.com