DC Line to Line Short-Circuit Fault Management in a Turbo-Electric Aircraft Propulsion System Using Superconducting Devices

Sriharsha Venuturumilli, Frederick Berg, Lucien Prisse, Min Zhang, Weijia Yuan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Electric aircraft has already become a reality, with demonstration flights at power ratings of less than 1 MVA. Conventional machines and distribution technologies suffer from poor power densities when scaling to large power demands, leading to significant challenges in applying this technology from small (<10-seater) to large (>100-seater) planes. Superconducting devices could be an enabler for electric aviation due to their great potential for high efficiency and low weight. However, while the development of the superconducting components presents a significant challenge, the safe and effective combination of such components into a propulsion system also requires a significant area of research. For this purpose, a signal-based MATLAB-Simscape model for a dc network architecture in a turbo-electric aircraft has been established and the highly nonlinear models for the superconducting devices have been developed and integrated. This network model has been used to understand the fault current magnitude and rise time, as well as the stability behavior of the system utilizing the realistic electro-thermal models of superconducting devices in it. The derived network was investigated for a bus bar short circuit fault using both superconducting fault current limiter and fault current limiting high temperature superconducting (FCL HTS) cable. Based on the network characteristics, a fault tolerant dc network design was achieved by utilizing the FCL HTS cables. Similarly, the operation limits of the protection devices have been reduced greatly using superconducting components.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8681419
JournalIEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
Volume29
Issue number5
Early online date4 Apr 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2019

Funding

Manuscript received October 30, 2018; accepted March 24, 2019. Date of publication April 4, 2019; date of current version June 7, 2019. This work was funded in part by Airbus Group Innovations. (Corresponding authors: Sriharsha Venuturumilli and Weijia Yuan.) S. Venuturumilli is with the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, U.K.,and also with the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1XW, U.K. (e-mail: [email protected]).

Keywords

  • Aircraft propulsion
  • fault tolerance
  • HTS cables
  • power system faults
  • short circuit currents
  • system engineering

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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