Electric and hybrid-electric aircraft propulsion systems: development, difficulties and opportunities

Abstract

As the world has grown rapidly over the past century, so has the aviation industry as a whole. This has led to a huge volume of aviation market and at the same time the aviation market excessive reliance on fuel, with a consequent huge environmental impact. As a global community, we are moving towards an electrified transport architecture. And some studies of aircraft propulsion systems have shown that electric and hybrid electric propulsion systems offer significant benefits over conventional fuel propulsion systems. However, there are also some researches have shown that while some electrified propulsion strategies can result in significant reductions in CO2 emissions, the overall cost of the aircraft can also increase significantly. The economic efforts made in terms of purely electric and hybrid propulsion have not been significant, so this technology is not yet in significant use in the aviation market. This paper considers some of these systems and analyses their structural advantages, technical requirements, etc. This is followed by a discussion of the current difficulties and future trends in the application of purely electric and hybrid propulsion systems. It is also significant to convey that the current immaturity of this technology and the areas for improvement.