Hybrid electric distributed propulsion overall aircraft design process and models for general aviation (FAST GA)

Abstract

In the frame of the European objectives in terms of CO2 emissions, the aeronautics is looking for a technological rupture to achieve them, in particular, the aircraft design domain pursuits this through the research of innovative architectures. One of these innovative configurations currently being explored includes the hybrid electric energy source (thermal/electric) for Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) architecture. This Paper details a code developed to size a general aviation aircraft at concept level, by only defining its top level requirements and the main architecture parameters. The code can manage both conventional and hybrid power source as well as concentred or distributed propulsion architectures in order to allow the user to evaluate and compare the feasibility and benefits respectively of these innovative architectures. This code is a branch of the code “FAST-CS25” (Future Aircraft Sizing Tool for conventional CS-25 type) held by ONERA/ISAE-SUPAERO. The presented work aims at the expansion of the FAST code to CS-23 conventional type, hybrid electric energy source, and distributed propulsion system configurations. Through this paper, the models and the main sizing loops for the concept design are described, but putting special emphasis on the distributed propulsion aerodynamics and wing mass estimation. These detailed models where validated with the NASA X-57 DEP aircraft satisfactory. The whole concept design loop of a hybrid energy aircraft was validated with the eGenius hybrid energy aircraft.