Design tool for speedier, better aircraft electrical system design
Aerospace is switching to electrical systems from hydraulic, pneumatic and mechanical power ones. To deal with this trend towards electrification, the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe and the strategic Clean Sky imitative are calling for the reduction in fuel consumption, emissions and noise through the adoption of a new approach when designing such systems. The EU-funded MAGMOLIB (Modelica library of detailed magnetic effects in rotating machinery) project devised a tool to improve and accelerate the design of electric motors while enhancing their energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions. Specifically, project partners developed a pre-design tool that is available for a broad range of electrical motors. It is able to perform a simple and accurate pre-design in minutes, including efficiency maps, sections, fail conditions and potential design solutions. The tool informs a designer about unfeasible designs and indicates potential errors. It uses a table of inputs to manage the information the software needs to generate the machine model and calculate performance. This software is based on Modelica, an object-oriented, multi-domain language for modelling physical systems. The MAGMOLIB team also developed an electrical, magnetic and thermal model for a specific type of electric motor. It is fully compatible with the pre-design tool. Both the tool and the model were successfully validated at a mechatronics laboratory. Thanks to MAGMOLIB, a tool optimised for electric motors is now available that enables a more rapid design and better performance than existing solutions. The improved energy management will help to reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution.
Keywords
Aircraft electrical system, MAGMOLIB, magnetic effects, rotating machinery
