Parameter-Matching Algorithm and Optimization of Integrated Thermal Management System of Aircraft

Ri Wang,Sujun Dong,Peiru Li,Hainan Zhang,Hongsheng Jiang

doi:10.3390/aerospace9020104

Abstract

The integrated thermal management system of aircraft is essential to maintain a suitable environment for the cabin crew and devices. The system is composed of the air-cycle refrigeration subsystem, the vapor-compression refrigeration subsystem, the liquid-cooling subsystem and the fuel-cycle subsystem, which are coupled with each other through heat exchangers. Due to the complex structure and large number of components in the system, it is necessary to design a corresponding parameter-matching algorithm for its special structure and to select the appropriate optimization design method. In this paper, the structure of an integrated thermal management system is analyzed in depth. A hierarchical matching algorithm of system parameters was designed and realized. Meanwhile, a sensitivity analysis of the system was performed, where key parameters were selected. Besides, a variety of optimization algorithms was used to optimize the design calculations. The results show that the particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm could effectively find the global optimal solution when taking the fuel penalty as the objective function. Furthermore, the particle swarm optimization method took less time.

Highlights

With the development of aviation technology, the aircraft is required to carry highpower equipment, electronic warfare, radar and other advanced avionics components
Using the global optimization toolbox in MATLAB, we developed the code for the optimization algorithms
According to the maximum and minimum values of each variable defined in Table 3, pattern search, genetic algorithm and particle swarm algorithm were used to optimize the 11-variable scheme and the simplified 6-variable scheme

Summary

Introduction

With the development of aviation technology, the aircraft is required to carry highpower equipment, electronic warfare, radar and other advanced avionics components. The aircraft is equipped with a large amount of electromechanical equipment, covering energy conversion, transmission, utilization, etc. The energy losses are converted into heat loads, which substantially increases the heat-dissipation requirements [5,6]. Aircrafts mainly use ram air and fuel as heat sinks [7,8], but technical measures such as the extensive use of composite materials in the aircraft structure, the restriction of the ram-air inlet for stealth and the removal of large energy-consuming bleed air further reduce the available heat sink [9], causing a huge gap in the thermal management of the whole aircraft

Results

Discussion

Conclusion