Application of SMES-FCL in Electric Aircraft for Stability Improvement

TY - JOUR

T1 - Application of SMES-FCL in Electric Aircraft for Stability Improvement

AU - Alafnan, Hamoud

AU - Elshiekh, Mariam

AU - Pei, Xiaoze

AU - Altouq, Shadan

AU - Fazeli, Seyed

AU - Sun, Qixing

AU - Zhang, Min

AU - Yuan, Weijia

PY - 2019/8/1

Y1 - 2019/8/1

N2 - The increase in aircraft passengers and airfreight traffic has given rise to concerns about greenhouse gas emissions for traditional aircraft and the resulting damage to the environment. This has led several companies and organizations, including NASA, to set goals to enhance aircraft efficiency as well as reduce fuel burn, pollution, and noise for commercial aircraft. The most notable electric aircraft (EA) concept is the N3-X, which was developed by NASA to achieve environmental goals while maintaining the annual growth of the aviation industry. However, one of the main challenges that EA is facing is their overall weight. This paper proposes and explores an improved power system architecture for use in EA, based on the N3-X concept. The number of superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) and fault current limiter (FCL) devices required can be reduced by utilizing multifunctional superconducting devices that combine the functionalities of both a SMES and a FCL, thus reducing the weight and cost of the EA by eliminating a complete device. The proposed control technique offers greater flexibility in determining the appropriate size of coils to function as a FCL, based on the fault type. The proposed EA power system architecture including the SMES-FCL devices is modelled in Simulink/MATLAB to test the system performance under different failure scenarios.

AB - The increase in aircraft passengers and airfreight traffic has given rise to concerns about greenhouse gas emissions for traditional aircraft and the resulting damage to the environment. This has led several companies and organizations, including NASA, to set goals to enhance aircraft efficiency as well as reduce fuel burn, pollution, and noise for commercial aircraft. The most notable electric aircraft (EA) concept is the N3-X, which was developed by NASA to achieve environmental goals while maintaining the annual growth of the aviation industry. However, one of the main challenges that EA is facing is their overall weight. This paper proposes and explores an improved power system architecture for use in EA, based on the N3-X concept. The number of superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) and fault current limiter (FCL) devices required can be reduced by utilizing multifunctional superconducting devices that combine the functionalities of both a SMES and a FCL, thus reducing the weight and cost of the EA by eliminating a complete device. The proposed control technique offers greater flexibility in determining the appropriate size of coils to function as a FCL, based on the fault type. The proposed EA power system architecture including the SMES-FCL devices is modelled in Simulink/MATLAB to test the system performance under different failure scenarios.

KW - Electric aircraft (EA)

KW - fault current limiter (FCL)

KW - superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES)

KW - turboelectric distributed propulsion system (TeDP)

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064882939&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1109/TASC.2019.2905950

DO - 10.1109/TASC.2019.2905950

M3 - Article

VL - 29

JO - IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

T2 - IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

JF - IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

SN - 1051-8223

IS - 5

M1 - 8668791

ER -