eu-flag.jpg

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 875504

Electrification of functions in the aircraft to a More Electric Aircraft (MEA) already leads to growth of Power Electronics and EWIS. This growth will be accelerated by the introduction of electric propulsion. Electric propulsive power for EVE EPOS SportStar is 75 kW, which is in the order of magnitude of automobiles. Boundary Layer Ingestion and sub-regional small aircraft (20 seats) will raise this magnitude to 1 MW and regional aircraft and large passenger aircraft to 10 MW and beyond. The market revenues foreseen[1], show a gradual growth for MEA and all electric aircraft. A change for regional aircraft to HEP is expected between 2036 and 2039. UTRC-I, FE and EVE strategy does anticipate this market development.

Market Outlook Electrical Propulsed Aircraft (INSIGHT 07 – ATI)

Market Outlook Electrical Propulsed Aircraft (INSIGHT 07 – ATI)

 

UTRC-I Power Electronics strategy will let increase the capacity accordingly, both in electric capacity as in market volume capacity. FE has the strategy to be supplier of EWIS to support all electric power electric data transport, including wireless data. EVE operated the EPOS SportStar as a platform supporting their technology developments with the outlook to exploitation for pilot training purposes. In the electrified version of 9-14 seat regional twin-prop EV-55 Outback, EVE envisions future full electrification and the technologies acquired will also support EVE business in the automotive industry. The revenue for Power Electronics for business and regional jet up to 2037 is estimated at greater than 1B€. As one of the largest player in this area, UTC targets a market share of >50% with a significant European footprint. EASIER technology outputs can also have potential off‑ramps to other electrical systems on aircraft.   The market potential for high power EWIS solutions for electric (propelled) aircraft is based upon aircraft size and mission profile with corresponding fleet size and expected replacement and extension of these. Based on Fokker Elmo internal calculations, until 2040 an electrical propelled market potential in excess of 200 Bln € is foreseen (aligning well with Figure 18). Deriving the EWIS market potential (wiring is responsible for ~1% of the aircraft cost price) a figure of 2 Bln € is derived. As FE will aim for a market share of 25% in 2040 of EWIS suppliers, this represents a market share of >500 M€ over the period until   2040. This market share which seems reasonable concerning actual market position and GKN supported strategic ambition and market share growth from 12% in 2015 to 17% in 2019. The market potential after and expected turnover will significantly increase after 2040 according Figure 18. EASIER supports FE strategy to deliver the competence of a Tier 1 system supplier of System Integration Optimization, to ensure optimal integrated solutions instead of electrical wiring as a commodity. Power EWIS is part of the total solution of EWIS supplied and cannot be observed separately as market offer. It also supports the ongoing move to contribute to the development of new regulations and standards. According to sources of LAMA and LAMA EU, there is an estimation that the world fleet of two-seaters for sport aviation and pilot’s training has about 50 000 aircraft. The light sport aircraft are creating essential part of them (more than 3000 airplanes of the LSA category is registered in the USA only). A supposed sales quantity of sport two-seaters comes to 1000 aircraft per year. Market expectation for electric two-seater of the CS-LSA or CS-VLA category is at least 25 % in the first five years after its introduction into the market.

[1] INSIGHT 07 Electrical Power Systems, Aerospace Technology Institute UK, July 2018

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.

The barriers to achieve this impacts are link to the new regulations and industry standardisation that may change the boundary conditions or obstruct application of components developed. EASIER measures to overcome these obstacles consist in participating in standardisation committees and having contacts with EASA to be used to early identify changes.

The barriers to achieve this impact are related to the demonstrator platform that could not be representative for the solutions of larger aircraft. EASIER will overcome this obstacle by applying iron bird as ground for evaluation of technologies in larger airframes

 The obstacle to this impact is a high cost to mature beyond TRL 4 cancelling commercial viability. To overcome this, EASIER will participate in standardisation committees to explore possibility to share cost for qualification with industry. Collaboration with component suppliers will be explored too.

Publications

1 of 1
no publication yet available

Latest Linkedin posts

1 of 3
May 19, 2021

Jun 16, 2021

Apr 30, 2021