Optimized Design of ±5 kV, 1 kA Rectangular Power Cable for a Low Pressure of 18.8 kPa for Envisioned All-Electric Wide-Body Aircraft

Abstract

Power cables, one of the key components of electric power systems (EPS) in future wide-body all-electric aircraft (AEA), have a lot of room for improvement in achieving low system mass leading to high power density designs. The limited heat transfer by convection at a cruising altitude of 12.2 km (18.8 kPa) presents thermal issues for the design of aircraft power cables. The surface area of the cable influences both convective and radiative heat transfers. One way to improve radiative heat transfers and make up for the lower convective heat transfer caused by the low air pressure is to change the shape of the cable. The rectangular geometry design of cables offers a larger contact area with the surrounding atmosphere compared to cylindrical and cuboid cables of the same cross-sectional area. This paper presents the design and analysis of rectangular bipolar MVDC power cables in addition to cuboid, coaxial, and conventional cylindrical bipolar cables to determine the optimized bipolar MVDC power cable system for future wide-body AEA. To compare these designs, a parameter $J$ is introduced that quantifies the product of the overall mass per unit length of the cables and their cross-sectional area. According to the findings, the rectangular bipolar cable systems demonstrated superior performance compared to other bipolar cable systems in terms of $J$ and would be a solution for future wide-body AEA.

Keywords

• All-electric aircraft (AEA)
• coaxial cable
• cuboid geometry
• low pressure
• MVDC power cables
• multilayer insulation