10.3390/aerospace9030150
https://zenodo.org/records/6520209
oai:zenodo.org:6520209
Nicolas Moebs
Nicolas Moebs
Institute of Aircraft Design, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Dominik Eisenhut
Dominik Eisenhut
Institute of Aircraft Design, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Evert Windels
Evert Windels
Aircraft Development and Systems Engineering (ADSE) BV, 2132 HZ Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Jenny van der Pols
Jenny van der Pols
Aircraft Development and Systems Engineering (ADSE) BV, 2132 HZ Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
Andreas Strohmayer
Andreas Strohmayer
Institute of Aircraft Design, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Adaptive Initial Sizing Method and Safety Assessment for Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft
Zenodo
2022
hybrid-electric propulsion
preliminary aircraft design
sustainable aviation
aircraft safety analysis
regional air travel
2022-03-08
https://zenodo.org/communities/futprint50h2020project
https://zenodo.org/communities/eu
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
In the wake of many climate-friendly initiatives, the aviation sector must become more sustainable. A potential path for regional airliners could be the installation of hybrid-electric powertrains. In this work, a conceptual study design of various powertrain architectures is conducted. This helps the designer to quickly generate approximate numbers on the basic characteristics of new aircraft configurations. These results can be used to advance subsystems modeling or improve the starting values in the following preliminary aircraft design. After the selection of representative architectures, reasonable technological assumptions were gathered, ranging between a conservative and an optimistic scenario. This was done for powertrain components, various energy storage concepts and structural and aerodynamic changes. The initial sizing method was developed by building two interconnected sizing iteration loops. In addition, a safety assessment was integrated due to the many unconventional components in the powertrain’s setup. The results show that the fuel consumption of a conventional aircraft is not undercut with a hybrid-electric powertrain aircraft based on conservative technological assumptions. In the optimistic scenario, however, selected powertrain architectures show a significant drop in fuel consumption when compared to the conventional one. Furthermore, the use of synergistic effects and systematic powertrain optimizations can decrease the fuel consumption even further. In conclusion, it was shown that this initial sizing method can calculate entire hybrid-electric aircraft designs on a conceptual level. The results can quickly present trends that are reasonable and helpful. In addition, the safety assessment first gives evidence about which levels of safety have to be considered for the different components in the development of hybrid-electric powertrains.
European Commission
10.13039/501100000780
875551
Future propulsion and integration: towards a hybrid-electric 50-seat regional aircraft