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Environmental Modeling and Impact Assessment
ATAC applies expertise gained from its extensive aviation model development experience as well as various airspace, airport capacity, and environmental modeling research efforts to analyze the environmental impacts of a wide range of airport and airspace modifications. With this multi-discipline capability the environmental consequences of proposed actions can be evaluated throughout the project cycle and can be evaluated in lock step with other impacts such as those on airport capacity or airspace efficiency. Any trade-offs due to such impacts can also be quickly and comprehensively determined.
ATACs role as the lead software developer and system integrator of the FAA's Integrated Noise Model (INM) gives in-depth insight into the model's capabilities, limitations, and use. ATAC also plays a large role in the development of the Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT), the FAA's next generation environmental modeling software spanning local and global noise and emissions analyses. ATAC's FAA-funded research efforts aimed at improving the capabilities of the INM and the AEDT keep it at the forefront of aviation environmental modeling methods and practices. These factors combined allow ATAC to develop and apply software tools and analysis methods to address environmental analysis questions beyond the scope of publicly available tools in a technically defensible manner. Such tools and methods include:
- Modeling the noise and fuel-burn benefits of Continuous Descent Approaches (CDAs)
- Animating aircraft flight trajectories and corresponding sound exposure or maximum sound level contours
- Directly linking airport capacity modeling results with airport noise modeling inputs
- Generation of Number Above contours
ATAC has applied its expertise to a variety of aviation environmental modeling tasks. These efforts include:
- Environmental Assessment for a Simultaneous Offset Instrument Approach /Precision Runway Monitor Project at San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
- San Francisco International Airfield Development Planning
- Los Angeles International Airport Southside Airfield and New Large Aircraft (NLA) Studies
- Port of Oakland Airfield/Airspace Modeling in Support of SEIR
- Alamogordo-White Sands Regional Airport Environmental Assessment
The studies performed by ATAC have addressed such issues as:
- Airspace modifications
- Number Above noise calculations to support sleep disturbance analyses
- Runway and taxi-way reconfigurations, including single-event taxi operation noise analyses
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| Single event noise footprint of departing B747 |
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