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Angelos Filippatos

University of Patras,

Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics

Global sustainability targets are steering the aviation sector toward practices that reach well beyond isolated environmental-impact evaluations. Community-driven insights underline the importance of embedding sustainability thinking from the earliest design sketches through to final material choices. This abstract consolidates key findings from research undertaken at the University of Patras and illustrates how a holistic sustainability perspective can be integrated across the aviation design related activities.


First, the investigations show how material selection for aircraft structures can be assessed using a sustainability framework that takes into account on structural performance, environmental performance, cost efficiency, and circular-economy potential. A dedicated decision-support tool was developed to benchmark candidate materials against these three dimensions and to flag combinations that satisfy stringent sustainability thresholds.


Second, a suite of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) algorithms and normalization technique was systematically compared, revealing that methodological choices can significantly influence overall sustainability scores. Quantifying this sensitivity enables design teams to just the robustness of the rankings generated.


Third, the MCDM framework was scaled to whole-aircraft assessments. A hybrid analytic-hierarchy-process and weighted-addition model ranked aircraft incorporating novel fuels or propulsion concepts under varying stakeholder priorities, demonstrating how changes in weighting schemes can reorder preferred options.


Fourth, a sustainability-driven component-design workflow was formulated and validated on a composite aviation structure demonstrator. The method interweaves technological, environmental, economic, and circularity criteria into a single conceptual level, ensuring that trade-offs become visible before irreversible design commitments are made.


Collectively, the studies highlight a comprehensive yet pathway for embedding holistic sustainability assessment and design into aviation engineering, providing actionable guidance for industry as it charts a credible course toward greener flight. A composite sustainability index enables alternative designs to be optimized on this broader basis.


Main Message:


• Performance, environmental, economic, circular and social metrics merge in a n holistic framework, guiding early design teams to choose designs, materials and concepts that can meet aviation requirements.


Summary


In this work, results of a group of studies from University of Patras, relevant with the sustainability-oriented design in the aviation industry, will be presented. Sustainability definitions, assessment frameworks and practical design campaigns of aviation components will be the core results of the presented studies. Overall, our aim is to highlight the need for a holistic and comprehensive approach to sustainability assessment and sustainable design aviation with practical examples and robust proposals for the industry’s way forward.

Panel Discussion:

Sustainability challenges in Aviation: CO2 Emissions, Noise Reduction & more

Holistic Assessment and Design Approaches Towards Sustainable Aviation

Short Bio

Dr.-Ing. Angelos Filippatos is an Assistant Professor of Design of Machine Elements and Machine Design at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics of the University of Patras in Greece where he leads the group “Intelligent Design and Sustainable Engineering – IDEAS”.  He was between 2020 to 2022 a group leader of the research group "Hierarchical Topologies - Intelligent Systems with material-inherent functions" at the Dresden Center for Intelligent Materials (DCIM) of the Technische Universität Dresden. He studied at the National Technical University of Athens - School of Mechanical Engineering where he graduated at 2010.


His scientific expertise concerns design of systems and mechanical structure, sustainability in engineering, multi-material design and intelligent engineering combining parametric simulations and machine learning techniques. In the last years, his research is particularly focused on applying these fields, among others, on the energy transition of the aviation and maritime sector.

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Osquars backe 8114 28 Stockholm, Sweden

Dissemination e-mail:

refmap@futureneeds.eu

Coordination e-mail: gzampino@kth.se

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This Project has received funding from the European Union’s HORIZON Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement number 101096698

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