Real Time Multiple Fidelity Physics Based Simulation of Aircraft Environmental Control System

Abstract

Environmental regulations and cost pressures are leading to innovation in every aspect of Aircraft design. One of the important aspects of Aircraft design is the Environmental Control System (ECS) design which plays a critical role in addressing passenger comfort and safety. High Fidelity (2D, 3D) Physics based simulation is being used to design several components of the ECS, in addition to low fidelity (0D, 1D) simulations at system level. Ideally one would like to perform high fidelity simulations at system level to ensure highest accuracy and thorough understanding of the system response as a whole. However such a simulation many not be feasible to give real time response even with high computing power at the disposal of the designer. An intelligent way to address this problem is to develop a Reduced Order Model (ROM) for each component that requires high fidelity simulations and hook into the system which might contain models with lower fidelity. On the other side control software development is quite often done separately. Combining the control software design into the system level simulation would give an ideal platform to create real time virtual system and lead to efficient design of ECS. In this direction, in the current project an Aircraft ECS model is developed using ANSYS Simplorer by hooking ROM developed in ANSYS Fluent CFD solver for the Aircraft cabin. Pressure control system of ECS is modeled using ANSYS SCADE suite and hooked in as a Functional Mockup Unit (FMU). Flight takeoff and climb scenario is considered to test the model’s response to continuous variations in the ambient pressure and temperature conditions.