The Effects of the Degree of Hybridisation on the Design of Hybrid-Electric Aircraft Considering the Balance between Energy Efficiency and Mass Penalty

The growing interest in the application of the hybrid-electric concept demands a rigorous method applied to balancing the energy efficiency improvement with the mass penalty. In hybrid-electric aircraft (HEA) design, it is necessary to avoid excessive usage of energy, which is caused by deliberate h...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Aerospace 2023-01, Vol.10 (2), p.111
Main Authors: Kang, Le, Sun, Yicheng, Smith, Howard, Mao, Junkui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aeronautics
Aircraft
Aircraft design
Analysis
Aviation
Carbon dioxide emissions
Design
Design optimization
design space exploration
Energy consumption
Energy conversion
Energy conversion efficiency
Energy efficiency
energy saving
Fines & penalties
Flight operations
Fly by wire control
Fuel consumption
hybrid-electric aircraft
multi-objective design
multidisciplinary design analysis and optimisation
Theoretical analysis
Turbofan aircraft
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The growing interest in the application of the hybrid-electric concept demands a rigorous method applied to balancing the energy efficiency improvement with the mass penalty. In hybrid-electric aircraft (HEA) design, it is necessary to avoid excessive usage of energy, which is caused by deliberate hybridising in pursuit of high electrical energy conversion efficiency. This paper presents a design method to achieve multi-objective designs conducted within a framework of multi-disciplinary design exploration appropriate for HEA, meeting the requirement of minimising the maximum take-off mass (MTOM) and fuel saving. A theoretical analysis proposes the existence of the optimum design area of HEA. This is followed by a series of demand-focused numerical design experiments that have verified the existence and position of the optimum design area by taking the mission of a short-range narrow-body airliner as the design target, considering the predicted technology timeline until 2050. Compared to a fuel-powered twin-turbofan aircraft, 65.56% fuel-saving, 16.4% reduction in flight operation cost, 44.58% reduction in block CO2 emission, and 75% improvement in the cost-specific air range (COSAR) are achieved via hybridisation using the proposed design optimisation method.
ISSN:2226-4310
2226-4310
DOI:10.3390/aerospace10020111