I-Corps: High frequency propulsors for hybrid-electric airplanes

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使电动和混合动力飞机能够广泛采用，这有助于减少全球航空业日益增长的燃料需求和碳影响。随着研究表明，商用运输机与电力推进可以大大减少使命燃料燃烧，许多商业努力，最近已经推出了开发更有效的混合动力飞机。该项目中追求的高比功率电机和驱动器可以显著改变系统级重量与效率的交易，并提高这些车辆的技术和商业可行性。这些技术有可能帮助航空航天工业实现为下三代商用运输机设定的雄心勃勃的目标，并确保美国在该行业的领导地位。这个I-Corps项目的重点是确定一种新型高频、高功率重量比电机的商业潜力，这种电机适用于电动和混合动力飞机等重量敏感型应用。基于宽带隙电力电子器件的功率转换器用于将机器的工作频率驱动到电流值的约十倍，从而显著减少电动机中对重金属的需求。一组计算效率的多物理模型，这种类型的机器，结合耦合的电磁和热效应，已在以前的NSF资助的计划。这些模型已被嵌入到快速优化方案中，并用于生成具有非常高的功率重量比的机器设计，达到了业界公认的商用飞机广泛采用混合动力电动推进的阈值。除了重量减轻之外，这类机器还具有与当前可用机器截然不同的电气和机械特征。通过I-Corps计划，该团队将努力了解全套客户要求以及飞行重量、兆瓦级电动机对整机经济性的附加值。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to enable widespread adoption of electric and hybrid-electric aircraft that can help reduce the growing fuel needs and carbon impact the global aviation industry. With studies showing that commercial transport aircraft with electric propulsion can substantially reduce the mission fuel burn, many commercial efforts have recently been launched to develop more efficient hybrid-electric airplanes. The high specific power electrical machines and drives being pursued in this project can significantly alter system level trades of weight versus efficiency and improve the technical and commercial viability of these vehicles. These technologies have the potential to help the aerospace industry achieve the ambitious goals that have been set for the next three generations of commercial transport aircraft, and ensure US leadership of the industry.This I-Corps project is focused on determining the commercial potential of a new class of high frequency, high power-to-weight ratio electrical machines for weight sensitive applications like electric and hybrid electric aircraft. Power converters based on wide band-gap power electronic devices are used to drive the operating frequency of the machine to about ten times current values, leading to a significant reduction in the need for heavy metals in the electric motor. A set of computationally efficient multi-physics models for this type of machines, incorporating coupled electromagnetic and thermal effects, has been developed within a prior NSF-funded program. These models have been embedded within a rapid optimization scheme and used to generate machine designs with very high power-to-weight ratios, attaining values that have been identified by the industry as a threshold for wide-spread adoption of hybrid electric propulsion in commercial aircraft. In addition to weight reduction, this class of machines have electrical and mechanical features that are quite different from currently available machines. Through the I-Corps program the team will work to understand the full set of customer requirements and the value added by flight-weight, megawatt scale electric motors to the economics of the complete aircraft.