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MIL-STD-704 defines power quality in terms of transient, steady-state, and frequency-domain metrics that are applicable throughout a military aircraft electric power system. Maintaining power quality in more electric aircraft power systems has become more challenging in recent years due to the increase in load dynamics and power levels in addition to stricter requirements of power system characteristics during a variety of operating conditions. Further, power quality is often difficult to assess directly during experiments and aircraft operation or during data post-processing for the integrated electric power system (including sources, distribution, and loads). While MIL-STD-704 provides guidelines for compliance testing of electric load equipment, it does not provide any instruction on how to assess the power quality of power sources or the integrated power system itself, except the fact that power quality must be satisfied throughout all considered operating conditions.

Movement toward more-electric architectures in military and commercial airborne systems has led to electrical power systems (EPSs) with complex power flow dynamics and advanced technologies specifically designed to improve power quality in the system. As such, there is a need for tools that can quickly analyze the impact of technology insertion on the system-level dynamic transient and spectral power quality and assess tradeoffs between impact on power quality versus weight and volume. Traditionally, this type of system level analysis is performed through computationally intensive time-domain simulations involving high fidelity models or left until the hardware fabrication and integration stage. In order to provide a more rapid analysis prior to hardware development and integration, stochastic equivalent circuit analysis is developed that can provide power quality assessment directly in the frequency domain.

The diverse and complex requirements of next-generation energy optimized aircraft (EOA) demand detailed transient and dynamic model-based design (MBD) to ensure the proper operation of numerous interconnected and interacting subsystems. In support of the U.S. Air Force's Integrated Vehicle Energy Technology (INVENT) program, several software tools have been developed and are in use that aid in the efficient MBD of next-generation EOA. Among these are subsystem model libraries, automated subsystem model verification test scripts, a distributed co-simulation application, and tools for system configuration, EOA mission building, data logging, plotting, post-processing, and visualization, and energy flow analysis. Herein, each of these tools is described. A detailed discussion of each tool's functionality and its benefits with respect to the goal of achieving successful integrated system simulations in support of MBD of EOA is given.

The trend of moving towards model-based design and analysis of new and upgraded aircraft platforms requires integrated component and subsystem models. To support integrated system trades and design studies, these models must satisfy modeling and performance guidelines regarding interfaces, implementation, verification, and validation. As part of the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Integrated Vehicle and Energy Technology (INVENT) Program, standardized modeling and performance guidelines have been established and documented in the Modeling Requirement and Implementation Plan (MRIP). Although these guidelines address interfaces and suggested implementation approaches, system integration challenges remain with respect to computational stability and predicted performance over the entire operating region for a given component. This paper discusses standardized model evaluation tools aimed to address these challenges at a component/subsystem level prior to system integration.

Currently the U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) exclusively uses potassium acetate (KAc)-based runway deicing fluids (RDFs) to deice and anti-ice military runways and taxiways. Commercial airports predominantly use KAc, but some also use RDFs composed of KAc plus propylene glycol (PG) or urea plus PG. Conventional RDFs have environmental concerns due to toxicity as well as material compatibility problems such as corrosion of aircraft carbon brake-pad components, cadmium-plated landing gear, and airfield lighting fixtures. Under the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), Battelle tested a series of patented - bio-based RDFs to address these issues. Tests showed that the Battelle RDFs met the mandatory Aerospace Material Specification (AMS) 1435 requirements. These new RDFs have reduced ecotoxicity compared to currently used RDFs and are compliant with all other environmental requirements.

The term Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) describes a set of capabilities that enable sustainable and safe operation of components and subsystems within aerospace platforms. However, very little guidance exists for the systems engineering aspects of design with IVHM in mind. It is probably because of this that designers have to use knowledge picked up exclusively by experience rather than by established process. This motivated a group of leading IVHM practitioners within the aerospace industry under the aegis of SAE's HM-1 technical committee to author a document that hopes to give working engineers and program managers clear guidance on all the elements of IVHM that they need to consider before designing a system. This proposed recommended practice (ARP6883 [1]) will describe all the steps of requirements generation and management as it applies to IVHM systems, and demonstrate these with a “real-world” example related to designing a landing gear system.

The diverse and complex requirements of next-generation energy optimized aircraft (EOA) demand detailed transient and dynamic model-based design (MBD) to ensure the proper operation of numerous interconnected and interacting subsystems across multiple disciplines. In support of the U.S. Air Force's Integrated Vehicle Energy Technology (INVENT) program, several MBD-derived software tools, including models of EOA technologies, have been developed. To validate these models and demonstrate the performance of EOA technologies, a series of Integrated Ground Demonstration (IGD) hardware tests are planned. Several of the numerous EOA software tools and MBD-based processes have been updated and adapted to support this activity.