Aerospace Engineering and Sustainability
Objectives
- Understand the different aspects of the aerospace sector, in particular aviation, mainly with regard to its relationship with the environment, but also integrating other aspects (economy, society and governance).
- Fundamentals of climate change and resource use.
- Overview of life cycle analysis associated with the aerospace industry.
- Impact of aviation with emphasis on climate, land use planning, air quality, noise and use of materials.
- Environmental regulation and in the area of sustainability at national, European and international scales, including emissions trading and emissions offsetting.
- Climate mitigation measures in aviation (design efficiency and materials, batteries, biofuels, synthetic fuels) and environmental (materials, noise reduction, gas emissions, air traffic management, infrastructure location).
- Environmental perspective on the use of drones, satellites and space travel.
General characterization
Code
13148
Credits
3.0
Responsible teacher
Francisco Manuel Freire Cardoso Ferreira, João Miguel Dias Joanaz de Melo
Hours
Weekly - 3
Total - 48
Teaching language
Português
Prerequisites
None
Bibliography
Daley, D., 2024. Air Transport and the Environment 1st Edition, Routledge, 274 pp.
Ferreira, F., 2025. A Qualidade do ar em Portugal, Ensaio nº 145, Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos.
IPCC, 2023. Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Core Writing Team, H. Lee & J. Romero, Eds.). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-synthesis-report/
Miller, G.T. and Spoolman, S.E., 2021, Living in the Environment, 20th edition, Cengage,
Sabatini, R. and Gardi, A. (eds.), 2023. Sustainable Aviation Technology and Operations, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 544 pp.
Teaching method
The teaching method is supported by lectures and practical classes. The teaching methods are mainly conducted to support several aspects:
a) individual/group technical and scientific skills;
b) debate skills and coherent analysis in the interpretation of the studied subjects. Classes are complemented with a tutorial system, using e-learning tools.
Teaching will be inspired by the practical use monitoring information collected through mobile phones, sensors availability, and available databases
Evaluation method
The course evaluation is performed through two tests (25% weighting of each towards the final grade) and several group works (weighting 50% of the final grade). It is necessary that the average of the tests and the average of assignments is in both cases equal to or higher than 9.5.
Subject matter
- Introduction on the concept of sustainability
- General knowledge about environmental domains
- Climate change - mitigation and adaptation
- Strategic environmental assessment and environmental impact assessment
- Specific impacts of the aerospace sector on climate, air quality, noise, use of resources and land use planning.
- Environmental regulatory aspects related to aviation
- Good practices and measures to mitigate aviation impacts in the various domains
- Environmental perspective Integrada on the use of drones, satellites and space travel.