Search Results

Advancements in electrical, mechanical, and structural design onboard modern more electric aircraft have added significant stress to the thermal management systems (TMS). A thermal management system level analysis tool has been created in MATLAB/Simulink to facilitate rapid system analysis and optimization to meet the growing demands of modern aircraft. It is anticipated that the tracking of thermal energy through numerical integration will lead to more accurate predictions of worst case TMS sizing conditions. In addition, the non-proprietary nature of the tool affords users the ability to modify component models and integrate advanced conceptual designs that can be evaluated over multiple missions to determine the impact at a system level.

The movement to more-electric architectures during the past decade in military and commercial airborne systems continues to increase the complexity of designing and specifying the electric power system. In particular, the electrical power system (EPS) faces challenges in meeting the highly dynamic power demands of advanced power electronics based loads. This paper explores one approach to addressing these demands by proposing an electrical equivalent of the widely utilized hydraulic accumulator which has successfully been employed in hydraulic power system on aircraft for more than 50 years.

No-break power transfer (NBPT) has been used in the 400 Hz aircraft electrical power business for over 30 years. Initially, NBPT was performed on military aircraft or large commercial jets where the interest was to maintain availability of critical equipment during dispatch. Recent-NBPT equipped aircraft such as the 747-400 and MD-11 have demonstrated the desirability of this feature in commercial airline service. Some compatibility issues with solid-state ground power units (GPUs) have also been uncovered.