Sustainable Aviation: The Route to Climate-Neutral Aviation

Henri Werij

Dean Faculty of Aerospace Engineering

Delft University of Technology

Prof. H.G.C. Henri Werij is the Dean of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Henri studied experimental physics at Leiden University, where he obtained his doctorate with honours in 1988. He then worked as a researcher at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) in Boulder, Colorado (US) and at the University of Amsterdam. He has been connected to TNO since 1993, first as a scientist and subsequently in a variety of (management) roles. His last position at TNO was Director of Space and Scientific Instrumentation. During his years as a researcher he published over 25 peer-reviewed scientific articles. He has since kept in touch with the world of science: he is a member of the Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (ARCNL) and of the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER). Werij was also a member of the Advisory Council of the faculty.

Irene Fernandez Villegas

Associate professor, Aerospace Structures and Materials

Delft University of Technology

Irene Fernandez Villegas graduated as an Aerospace Engineer at the Poly-Technical University of Madrid (UPM). In 2005 she got a PhD degree by the same University on Resistance Welding of Thermoplastic Composites. She has more than 15 years of research experience on processing and welding of thermoplastic composites, first at the National Institute of Aerospace Engineering in Madrid and currently at the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, where she works as an Associate Professor. In the last 12 years the efforts of the research team led by Dr. Fernandez Villegas at TU Delft have been strongly focused on understanding and developing ultrasonic welding of composite structures. Apart from her work on the development of welding technologies, Dr. Fernandez Villegas is highly interested in exploring how to make use of these and other new technologies to design sustainable aircraft structures.

Arvind Gangoli Rao

Associate professor

Delft University of Technology

Arvind Gangoli Rao is an associate professor in the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft. Dr. Gangoli Rao obtained his masters and PhD in aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He later worked at Technion, Israel as a post-doctoral researcher before joining TU Delft as an assistant professor in 2008.

Dr. Gangoli Rao is a specialist in aircraft propulsion and has worked on a variety of problems related to gas turbines and novel propulsion systems for aircraft, especially ones dealing with the usage of alternative energy sources. He has authored around 80 publications in various scientific journals and conferences. Dr. Gangoli Rao has been involved in several other EU projects and was also the coordinator of the EC funded AHEAD project and Dutch funded APPU project along with Safran, Airbus and Rotterdam Airport. He is the Dutch representative International Society of Air Breathing Engines (ISABE). He is also a member of the ACARE (Advisory Committee for Research and innovation in Europe) working group on Energy and Environment.

Dr. Gangoli Rao has been recently appointed as the Academic Portfolio Director for the theme “Future of Transportation” at the Delft Extension School.

Bruno Santos

Assistant professor

Delft University of Technology

Bruno F. Santos studied Civil Engineering at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal, and got his PhD in Transportation Systems Planning in 2009. He joined the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the TU Delft in 2013, after six years of teaching experience and being involved as a faculty in the Doctoral Program Transportation Systems of the MIT-Portugal Program.

Bruno is currently an Assistant Professor on Airline Operations and the interim head of the Air Transport and Operations research group at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. He is also the Scientific Coordinator of ReMAP, a 6.8 Million Euro H2020 project on Condition-based Maintenance in aviation. He has been involved in many European granted projects and bilateral projects involving major industry stakeholders in the aviation sector.

Roelof Vos

Assistant professor

Delft University of Technology

Roelof Vos is an assistant professor at the chair of Flight Performance and Propulsion. He specializes in the assessment of new aviation technologies and aircraft configurations that enable more fuel-efficient air transport. To support this, he develops dedicated software that enables the assessment of new technologies with respect to important aircraft characteristics such as fuel consumption, aircraft weight, and aerodynamic efficiency. This has resulted in the Aircraft Design Initiator, an automated aircraft synthesis program that is used throughout numerous externally-funded projects. By continuously adapting this program it can be used to assess the impact of new aviation technologies on.

Technologies that have recently been studied with this program include: hybrid-electric propulsion systems, maneuver-load alleviation through wing movables, and liquefied natural gas as fuel. Furthermore, aircraft configurations with tail-mounted propellers, blended-wing bodies, and a propulsive empennage have been studied. A completely new aircraft configuration for long-haul travel, the so-called Flying V, has recently been studied in terms of aerodynamic performance (CFD an wind tunnel tests), cabin design, and structural weight.

Maurice Hoogreef

Assistant professor

Delft University of Technology

Maurice Hoogreef is an assistant professor at the chair of Flight Performance and Propulsion. He obtained his MSc (2012) and PhD (2017) in aerospace engineering from Delft University of Technology.

Maurice' research focuses on the integration of novel propulsion systems for the conceptual design of sustainable aircraft. Here, Maurice combines his experience in conceptual aircraft design with his research on methodologies to support Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO).

He has been involved with several EU projects and is currently coordinating the CHYLA (Credible HYbrid eLectric Aircraft) project in the H2020 program, as well as TU Delft contribution to the NOVAIR project within the Large Passenger Aircraft framework of Clean Sky 2. Maurice is a member of the AIAA Electrified Aircraft Technology Technical Committee.

Joris Melkert

Senior lecturer

Delft University of Technology

Joris Melkert is senior lecturer at the Flight Performance and Propulsion chair. He holds a MSc degree in Aerospace Engineering and a Bachelor degree in Business Administration. Joris has more than 25 years of experience in lecturing not only all kinds of aviation related courses but also more fundamental courses.

Currently he lectures in Aircraft Performance, Structural Analysis and Design, Aircraft Design and Aircraft Manufacturing. Joris is also the Director of Education of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of TU Delft. Research interests are in aircraft design and alternative aviation fuels. Joris is a member of the Quality Assurance Board of the TU Delft Extension School.

Joris is member of the Program Committee of the International Council for the Aeronautical Sciences, ICAS. In addition to that Joris is the chair of the ACARE (Advisory Council for Aviation Research and innovation in Europe) Working Group on Research, Education and Research Infrastructure and the co-chair of the ACARE Strategy and Implementation Board. He also represents TU Delft in the European network of aerospace universities PEGASUS of which he been the chairman as well. Furthermore he represents the TU Delft in the worldwide network of aerospace universities ALICANTO.

Irene Dedoussi

Assistant Professor

Delft University of Technology

Dr. Irene Dedoussi is an Assistant Professor in the Aircraft Noise and Climate Effects (ANCE) section of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of the Delft University of Technology. Dr Dedoussi obtained her PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. She also holds a MS from MIT, and a MEng (Hons with Distinction) and BA (Hons) in Engineering from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Dedoussi’s work aims to improve our understanding of the environmental impact of emissions from aviation, and other energy and transportation sectors. Specifically, through the use of numerical modeling and observation-driven approaches, her research provides ways of estimating emissions and assessing their air quality and other atmospheric impacts. Dr Dedoussi’s work aims to help make informed regulatory and technological choices towards the sustainable growth of these sectors. Dr Dedoussi leads a Veni (Dutch Research Council Early Career Talent program) project, and is involved in multiple EU-funded projects on the atmospheric impact of aviation emissions. In 2020 she was selected by Forbes magazine as a ‘30 under 30’ for Europe’s Science & Healthcare list of innovators of the continent.