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This paper presents the details of an engine emulation system utilized within a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) test environment for aircraft power systems. The paper focuses on the software and hardware interfaces that enable the coupling of the engine model and the generator hardware. In particular, the rotor dynamics model that provides the critical link between the modeled dynamics of the engine and the measured dynamics of the generator is described in detail. Careful consideration for the measured torque is included since the measurement contains inertial effects as well as torsional resonances. In addition, the rotor model is equipped with the ability to apply power and speed scaling between the engine and generator.

One of the thrusts of the Advanced Integrated Fuel System (AIFS) initiative, sponsored by the Fuels Branch of the Aero and Propulsion Power Directorate at Wright Laboratories (WL/POSF) with partial funding from the United States Navy, is to realize the potential improvements in aircraft thermal management systems due to the 100 degrees F increase in fuel heat sink capacity of JP-8+100 fuel. This paper summarizes the conceptual design and top-level trade studies conducted by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC) under an AIFS contract. These studies examined the air vehicle-level payoffs of JP-8+100 fuel applied to the (1) F/A-18C/D (representing an existing fleet aircraft), (2) F/A-18E/F (representing an aircraft currently under development), and (3) a more-electric aircraft/subsystem integration technology (MEA/SUIT) configured version of an F/A-18 (representing a future aircraft). The objectives and approaches of these studies are presented.

The cost and complexity of aircraft power systems limit the number of integrated system evaluations that can be performed in hardware. As a result, evaluations are often performed using emulators to mimic components or subsystems. As an example, aircraft generation systems are often tested using an emulator that consists of a bank of resistors that are switched to represent the power draw of one or more actuators. In this research, consideration is given to modern wide bandwidth emulators (WBEs) that use power electronics and digital controls to obtain wide bandwidth control of power, current, or voltage. Specifically, this paper first looks at how well a WBE can emulate the impedance of a load when coupled to a real-time model. Capturing the impedance of loads and sources is important for accurately assessing the small-signal stability of a system.

Increases in on-board heat generation in modern military aircraft have led to a reliance on thermal management techniques using fuel as a primary heat sink. However, recent studies have found that fuel properties, such as specific heat, can vary greatly between batches, affecting the amount of heat delivered to the fuel. With modern aircraft systems utilizing the majority of available heat sink capacity, an improved understanding of the effects of fuel property variability on overall system response is important. One way to determine whether property variability inside a thermal system causes failure is to perform uncertainty analyses on fuel thermophysical properties and compare results to a risk assessment metric. A sensitivity analysis can be performed on any properties that cause inherent system variability to determine which properties contribute the most significant impact.

The thermal management of modern aircraft has become more challenging as aircraft capabilities have increased. The use of thermally resistant composite skins and the desire for low observability, reduced ram inlet size and number, have reduced the ability to transfer heat generated by the aircraft to the environment. As the ability to remove heat from modern aircraft has decreased, the heat loads associated with the aircraft have increased. Early in the aircraft design cycle uncertainty exists in both aircraft requirements and simulation predictions. In order to mitigate the uncertainty, it is advantageous to design thermal management systems that are insensitive to design cycle uncertainty. The risk associated with design uncertainty can be reduced through robust optimization. In the robust optimization of the thermal management system, three noise factors were selected: 1) engine fan air temperature, 2) avionics thermal load, and 3) engine thrust.

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 high electrical power demand and heat rejection characteristics of a high energy laser pose new challenges to airframe power and thermal system designers. Typically, the power demand requires additional power storage devices and electrical generator upsizing which will adversely impact the engine performance and installation envelope. The thermal system is complicated by an already limited onboard heat sink, resulting in a bulkier system. Utilizing conventional approaches, the aircraft will suffer from additional weight, less available installation volume, and lower overall performance. This paper presents a potential integrated power and thermal system with attributes to minimize aircraft penalty. The system is a collection of various integration techniques that will be discussed individually for potential standalone application.

Fuel has been a popular choice for thermal system designers to use for absorbing aircraft accessory heat load due to its consumable nature. However, the shortcoming of using fuel as a heat sink is the dependency of environmental conditions. This deficiency has plagued the current United States Air Force fleet operation especially performing ground hold and low altitude attack mission during hot days. A Northrop Grumman led industrial team, commissioned by AFRL Power directorate through the INVENT program, has vigorously explored potential technologies to assist air force to enhance the mission capability. The results show various promising technologies not only can extend the hot day operational limit but also can potentially have an unrestricted capability. This paper describes the results from the study performed by Northrop Grumman for an advanced unmanned air vehicle (AUAV) for potential technologies and discusses the modeling approach in support of the analytical process.

Validation is a critical component of model-based design (MBD). Without it, regardless of the level of model verification, neither the accuracy nor the domain of applicability of the models is known. Thus, it is risky to base design decisions on the predictions of unvalidated models. The Integrated Vehicle Energy Technology (INVENT) program is planning a series of hardware experiments that will be used to validate a large set of unit-, subsystem-, and system-level models. Although validating such a large number of interacting models is a large task, it provides an excellent opportunity to test the limits of MBD.

The objective of this paper is to discuss challenges involved in the measurement of key characteristics in an integrated aircraft assembly line environment. The measurement process is complicated by the fact that each workstation may have different fixture configurations that pose limitations on accessibility, optimum positioning of the measurement device, and accurate transfer of data into aircraft coordinates. The project objective is to develop and implement an optimum metrology system that meets program requirements to reduce both the cost of quality and product cycle time through increased measurement efficiency, “as-built” feature characterization, assembly guidance, “real-time” control, data analysis, and report generation.

New and powerful methods of characterizing existing and new airfoil geometries with mathematical equations are presented. The methods are applicable to a wide range of airfoil shapes representing traditional, cusped, reflexed, flat-bottom, laminar, transonic, and supersonic designs. With the emphasis on low-speed airfoils, several existing airfoils are first closely matched with the math-modeling methods. Then, to support the design of new airfoil geometries, a new interpretation of Theodorsen's potential flow method is outlined for the calculation and presentation of surface velocity in inviscid flow. Also, a vector approach is introduced for the calculation of pitching moment. Finally, new math-modeled airfoils are proposed for conventional and unique aircraft configurations.

Advancement in modern aircraft with the development of more dynamic and efficient technologies has led to these technologies increasingly operated near or at their operation limits. More comprehensive analysis methods based on high-fidelity models co-simulated in an integrated environment are needed to support the full utilization of these advanced technologies. Furthermore, the additional information provided by these new analyses needs to be correlated with updates to traditional metrics and specifications. One such case is the thermal limit requirement that sets the upper bound on a thermal system temperature. Traditionally, this bound is defined based on steady-state conditions. However, advanced thermal management systems experience dynamic events where the temperature is not static and may violate steady-state requirements for brief periods of time.

An IPTMS hardware facility has been established in the laboratories of the Aerospace Systems Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Paterson Air Force Base (WPAFB). This hardware capability was established to analyze the transient behavior of a high power Electrical Power System (EPS) coupled virtually to a Thermal Management System (TMS) under fast dynamic loading conditions. The system incorporates the use of dynamic electrical load, engine emulation, energy storage, and emulated thermal loads operated to investigate dynamics under step load conditions. Hardware architecture and control options for the IPTMS are discussed. This paper summarizes the IPTMS laboratory demonstration system, its capabilities, and preliminary test results.

Advancements in electrical, mechanical, and structural design onboard modern more electric aircraft have added significant stress to the electrical systems. An electrical 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. An integratated model of segment level models of an electrical system including a generator, electrical accumulator unit, electrical distribution unit and electromechanical actuators has been developed. Included in the model are mission level models of an engine and aircraft to provide relevant boundary conditions. It is anticipated that the tracking of the electrical distribution through numerical integration of these various subsystems will lead to more accurate predictions of the bus power quality. In this paper the tool is used to evaluate two architectures using two different load profiles.

Next generation aircraft will require more electrical power, more thermal cooling, and better versatility. To attain these improvements, technologies will need to be integrated and optimized at a system-level. The complexity of these integrated systems will require considerable analysis. In order to characterize and understand the implications of highly-integrated aircraft systems, the effects of pulsed-power, highly-transient loads, and the technologies that drive system-stability and behavior, an approach will be taken utilizing integrated modeling and simulation with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL). Such experiments can save time and cost and increase the general understanding of electrical and thermal phenomena as it pertains to aircraft systems before completing an integrated ground demonstration. As a first step toward completing an integrated analysis, a dynamometer “drive stand” was characterized to assess its performance.

Detailed machine models are, and will continue to be, a critical component of both the design and validation processes for engineering future aircraft, which will undoubtedly continue to push the boundaries for the demand of electric power. This paper presents a survey of experimental testing procedures for typical synchronous machines that are applied to brushless synchronous machines with rotating rectifiers to characterize their operational impedances. The relevance and limitations of these procedures are discussed, which include steady-state drive stand tests, sudden short-circuit transient (SSC) tests, and standstill frequency response (SSFR) tests. Then, results captured in laboratory of the aforementioned tests are presented.

In this research, excitation strategies for a salient-pole wound rotor synchronous machine are explored using a magnetic equivalent circuit model that includes core loss. It is shown that the excitation obtained is considerably different than would be obtained using traditional qd-based models. However, through evaluation of the resulting ‘optimal’ excitation, a relatively straightforward field-oriented type control is developed that is consistent with a desire for efficiency yet control simplicity. Validation is achieved through hardware experiment. The usefulness/applicability of the simplified control to variable speed applications is then considered.

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.

Fuselage panels for the Boeing 747 aircraft have been assembled at the Northrop Commercial Aircraft Division Alameda (D2) facility since the mid 1960's. The assembly work has been accomplished using Gemcor CNC Drivmatic systems. These systems have performed reliably since their initial installation in the late 1960's, but have recently begun to show their age. In 1992, the decision was made to establish a project that would direct the retrofit of these systems to state-of-the-practice condition. This paper will discuss the planning, scheduling and specification development for that project.

A reduced order dynamic aircraft model has been created for the purpose of enabling constructive simulation studies involving integrated thermal management subsystems. Such studies are motivated by the increasing impact of on-board power and thermal subsystems to the overall performance and mission effectiveness of modern aircraft. Previous higher-order models that have been used for this purpose have the drawbacks of much higher development time, along with much higher execution times in the simulation studies. The new formulation allows for climbs, accelerations and turns without incurring computationally expensive stability considerations; a dynamic inversion control law provides tracking of user-specified mission data. To assess the trade-off of improved run-time performance against model capability, the reduced order formulation is compared to a traditional six degree-of-freedom model of the same air vehicle.