System design and analysis of a battery-electric propulsion system

Abstract

The proportion of carbon and other environmentally harmful substances in the atmosphere increases steadyly and the climate of the earth is continuously warming up. The climate crisis yet has devastating consequences on humans, flora and fauna. To blame is not least our mobility infrastructure and therefore commercial aviation. Thus, it is proclaimed goal by many aviation players to develop towards a sustainable and emissionfree propulsion system. The improvement of fuel burning reduces the emissions but does not set them to zero, so that new technologies and variants need to be considered. One of these variants is the battery-electric propulsion system. This work aims to create a first design based on which an estimation on upcoming maintenance of such a system can be made and that clarifies at which stadium of development, decisions with most impact on corresponding maintenance effort were taken. Therefore, it was necessary to identify the prescribed steps to be taken to develop a system according valid laws and certification regulations. Subsequently, on a first system design all as necessary identified analyses were performed to define all relevant functions, which need to be certified in the system safety assessment. Based on the V-Model described in SAE ARP 4754A several subsequent analyses were conducted on system level to develop a first draft of the Electric Propulsion System (EPS). This provides the advantage of detailed knowledge of necessary functions, therefore required components, their amount and structure. Further, this work will demonstrate the first decision points for future maintenance and how to participate at the appropriate development phase to derive a maintenance optimized design.