FuelBurnEstimator

The FuelBurnEstimator class in AeroTrack estimates fuel consumption based on aircraft engine performance characteristics, thrust, and flight dynamics. It retrieves engine-specific data from the OpenAP library and applies a physics-informed estimation model to compute fuel burn rates.

This module plays a key role in post-flight performance analysis and fuel efficiency studies.

Class Overview

Constructor

FuelBurnEstimator(typecode)

Parameters:

  • typecode (str): ICAO aircraft type designator (e.g., ‘A320’, ‘B744’).

This initializes the estimator by retrieving the default engine model and associated performance parameters (e.g., fuel flow coefficients) from OpenAP.

Key Methods

Method Descriptions:

  • `estimate_fuel_burn(df)` Estimates fuel consumption (in kg/s) using modeled thrust and specific fuel consumption (SFC) for each timestamp in the DataFrame. Adds a fuel_burn_kg_s column.

Usage Example

from AeroTrack_Modules import FuelBurnEstimator

estimator = FuelBurnEstimator("A320")
df = estimator.estimate_fuel_burn(df)

df.to_csv("flight_with_fuel.csv", index=False)

Output

The output DataFrame will include:

  • fuel_burn_kg_s: Estimated fuel flow rate in kilograms per second at each time step.

Estimation Logic

Fuel burn is computed using:

\[\text{Fuel Burn (kg/s)} = \text{SFC} \times \text{Thrust (N)}\]

Where: - SFC is derived from OpenAP engine models. - Thrust is typically estimated based on vertical speed, drag, and climb/descent phase.

Dependencies

  • openap

  • numpy

  • pandas