Optimizing Mini-Jumbo!
Brief Overview:
This tool is designed for airlines who currently carry or will carry the Boeing 777 300ER in their fleet. This tool also works for other midsized planes with similar geometries such as the Airbus A330-300, or widebody planes such as the Boeing 747-8, Airbus A380, Boeing 767 & Lockheed L-1011 TriStar amongst others.
This tool is intended to help these airlines improve the inflight experience of their passengers by ensuring their comfort and safety, while still being profitable. This tool achieves this by utilizing generative design to optimize the configuration of the airplane seats. The main evaluation metrics used in this tool are the number of seats, the average distance between each passenger’s eyes to the air hostess at the front of their section, the percentage of fuel used to transport all the passengers and the average leg room for the passengers.
This tool takes in user defined information about the geometry of whole cabin space, in addition to the desired division of rows and columns in each class on the plane. It also takes in additional plane details such as the maximum distance range of the plane, the fuel storage capacity of the plane, and the fuel efficiency of the plane. The tool then uses this information to compute the number of seats on the plane, width, and legroom for seats in all the classes on the plane, the average of the legroom for passengers in each class of the plane, the distance between passengers and the air hostess designated to each class and the percentage of fuel used to transport all the passengers. The average distance between the passengers and the air hostess in their class enable the users of this tool to ensure safety by using this number to make sure all the passengers can comfortably see the air hostess doing the safety instructions. The number of seats and fuel usage outputs help the airlines ensure the profitability of the configuration and the size dimensions enable them to determine how comfortable each passenger will be.
Airlines can use this tool to help determine what the cabin dimensions should be to ensure profitability, safety, and comfort. This tool can also help airlines determine which classes they should have on their airplane to achieve this goal. This tool can also indicate if a plane with greater fuel capacity or efficiency is needed to achieve these goals.
Inputs:
The inputs into this study are shown below. All the inputs are variable except the length of the exit row which is a pretty standard amount across all planes. All the inputs are numbers that correspond to the standard geometry of a Boeing 777 300 ER passenger plane, but these can be varied to fit other plane geometries.
Underlying Logic of the Dynamo Graph:
Dynamo graph:
The tool uses the inputs to create two economy, one business and one first class section in the plane. The sections are divided into columns with the aisle width separating the columns. Each entire class section is divided by the width of the exit row. The divisions for the number of rows and columns in each section that is inputted by the user is used to create seats in each section. All the section seats are summed together to get the total number of seats on the plane. The length and width of each panel/seat gives the seat legroom and width for passengers in each class. The average of these is taken to find the average legroom for passengers in the plane. A point is then placed at the center of all the seats at the average seated eye level of a woman in the USA to simulate the eye level of all the passengers. The points indicating each passenger’s eye level is then color coded by the class that the passenger is seated. Next, a point is made at the front and middle of each section to simulate the eye level of the air hostess’s showing the safety instructions at the beginning of the flight. A vector is created to find the distance between passengers and the air hostess for their section, the average of all these values gives the average distance to the focal point. The percentage of fuel used is calculated by multiplying the number of passengers by the range by the fuel efficiency and dividing it by the total fuel capacity.
Outputs:
The following image is all the inputs of the dynamo graph. It can be noted that there are more outputs than the ones that directly relate to the goals of profitability and safety. This enables the users to use the tool for slightly different purposes, for instance they could be more interested in increasing comfort for only business and first class and if they decide to do so this tool gives them the ability to specify that.
Generative Study
The following images are the inputs I used to run the generative design study. The goal was to maximize the number of seats and the average leg room, while minimizing the average distance to the focal point and the fuel percentage usage. This helps increase profitability, while maintaining safety and comfortability.
The following image is of the results of the specific generative design study that was performed. The ability to do optimization from the tool and visualize it is key in helping the end users of this tool pick out the alternative that best suits their needs.
Catchy Name: Optimizing Mini - Jumbo
Recorded Video Demo:
https://acc.autodesk.com/docs/files/projects/7a6d9404-5c50-4d49-acbd-cf67d7302936?folderUrn=urn%3Aadsk.wipprod%3Afs.folder%3Aco.XBdHTYuPRc-1hgSLsbrPBQ&entityId=urn%3Aadsk.wipprod%3Adm.lineage%3AVV4AsmNFSIGy8vi0i6w4zQ&viewModel=detail&moduleId=folders