On the Study of Thermal-Propulsive Systems for Regional Aircraft

Abstract

Life without mobility is inconceivable. To enable this connectivity, one must find a way to progress towards a more sustainable transportation. In the aviation industry, a comprehensive understanding of greening technologies such as electrification of the propulsion system for commercial aircraft is required. A hybrid-electric propulsion concept applied to a regional aircraft is studied in the context of the FutPrInt50 project. To this end, the hybrid-electric propulsive system components are modeled, validated, and evaluated using computational and experimental data presented in the literature. The components are then assembled to construct the three powertrains for the hybrid-electric propulsion systems (Series, Parallel and Turboelectric) and parametric studies are carried out to study the influence of various battery parameters and hybridization factor. The performance results for a simple mission profile are generated. Together with a thermal management system, multi-objective optimization studies for the different architectures are then performed, with the power hybridization factor as the design variable and minimization of total mass and emissions as objective functions.

Keywords

• hybrid-electric propulsion
• thermal management system
• multidisciplinary design optimization
• multi-objective optimization
• regional aircraft