A Parametric Life Cycle Approach for Circular and Sustainable Aircraft Design

Clean aviation relies on multiple pathways, including:hydrogen propulsion (zero CO₂, altered NOx/contrails profile), Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), Hybrid-electric and electric architectures, Lightweight structures & circular materials. Decarbonizing aviation requires tools that quantify the full life cycle impact, not just fuel burn. Those include applying digital and energetic transitions, Circular design to product lifecycle development, through methodologies like the MBSE. Specific tools are implementing the RAMS analysis in operation, and exploit the LCA and LCC for a suitable decommissioning. This work aims at evaluating the environmental impact of each phase of the life cycle of a passenger aircraft, developing a Python-based parametric model integrated into a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) framework to support the circular design process of the aircraft, with a specific case study on the landing gear, integrating Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) methodologies. Outcomes demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach and the effectiveness of tools set up. Further develpoment includes a deeper MBSE integration by automating data flows between SysML diagrams and the LCA/LCC model, enabling real-time updates and better optimization of environmental and economic factors as well as by ensuring better compatibility between SysML diagrams and LCA databases.