EASIER project results will contribute to higher safety in future hybrid and full electric propelled aircraft. Offering optimized solutions will contribute to a more efficient power network increasing overall hybrid electrical propulsion system efficiency, reducing emission and increasing affordability. Both contributions are explained in the following paragraphs.
Higher Level of Safety:
The EASIER project will contribute to a higher level of safety of future hybrid and electric aircraft. The introduction of power converters and power cables to accommodate electric propulsion will introduce new problems in the field of Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). The levels of conducted and radiated electromagnetic interference are expected to increase by 20 dB. The EASIER project will provide solutions to reduce the conducted and radiated interference. These solutions exist of compact and lightweight filters and cable lay-outs. Because the filters will be small and lightweight they can be implemented efficiently in the aircraft. This will ensure that interference generated by power converters and other electrical equipment will not couple to other essential or critical equipment. In addition, the layout of electrical cables and wiring will be optimized in order to minimize radiated emission and threatening of the crew with high-intensive magnetic fields (WHO recommendations referred to ICNIRP and IEEE standards). Radiated emission can couple to wiring of other equipment or antennas of communication and navigation receivers.
Technology impact contributing to more affordable air transport with less emission:
New power network architectures will be developed to support different electric propulsion architectures. The power network will be parametrized to determine impact of different electrical architectures to weight, volume and efficiency to support development of the electrical propulsion architectures. Knowledge, tools and methods gained in EASIER for power network, can partly be re-used to optimize a secondary distribution power network for conventional propelled aircraft, both in the conceptual design phase and in the detailed design phase. Optimization of the combination of electronic functions and electrical wiring in such a network, can reduce weight up to 10%. Design strategies, design rules and design guidelines will be developed from the verified models and the experiences in design, manufacturing and verification of the equipment under test at the test rig demonstrator in the flying testbed SportStar EPOS.Flexibility in optimization Power EWIS to weight or volume, will lead to an overall weight reduction within existing volume available. In case there is sufficient space available, weight optimization will be applied. In case there is not sufficient space available, creation for extra space is, which would increase the weight of the aircraft structure, is avoided. Different cooling concepts will be defined and a preselection will be made for development and demonstration. Depending on the position in the aircraft and the distance from the heat source to the exterior, a cooling concept and architecture is supported with known scalability constraints. Behavioural models for EMC and thermal performance will be developed for Power Electronics and Power EWIS. These models will be verified to achieve a predictable performance of designs made to ease the design and verification process in the non-recurring phase of an aircraft program. The models will be a further development of actual proprietary models where practicable.
