Mechatronics numerical modelling for integrated turbo-electric techno-economic environmental risk assessment

Abstract

Long-term targets from the aerospace administration are to have cleaner, cost-efficient, and more performance-efficient transportation. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has proposed several solutions to hybrid technology, of which the turbo-electric distributed propulsion (TeDP) model is one of the latest promising models. This research project presents numerical modelling of the integrated TeDP model through the method of assisting technical performance, considering the economic and environmental risks. The contribution to numerical modelling is an integrated electrical module on the academic multidisciplinary Cranfield University gas-turbine TurboMatch® simulation tool with the projected method. In piloting this project, the outcome of this work advances the knowledge of TeDP and the future technology of aviation-distributed propulsion. Moreover, a proper simulation tool to assist TeDP and ‘more electric aviation’ has been upgraded in TurboMatch. In addition, an integrated development environment (IDE) extension for TurboMatch was developed to investigate the electrical grid in TeDP. This work presents a toolkit for assessing the power and efficiency profiles of the electrical network specified for TeDP. From the given level of thrust, the methodology was used to evaluate and optimise the electrical network. A number of integration electric propulsion models were developed to demonstrate the assisting method for redundancy and reliability improvement. The total goal was to initialise the features of the TeDP mechatronics and electrical grid with the best technical, economic, and environmental solutions for the greatest efficiency. The implication of this research is to understand the concept of TeDP using the use-case study of NASA’s N3-X conceptual proposal for project progress validation. The contribution knowledge lies in the area of the numeric model and the method to assist TeDP using the devised techno-economic environmental risk assessment (TERA) concept. The project inputs focus on future long-term goals for intelligent TeDP.