A New Perspective on Battery-Electric Aviation, Part II: Conceptual Design of a 90-Seater

Battery-electric aviation is commonly believed to be limited to small aircraft and is therefore expected have a negligible impact on the decarbonization of the aviation sector. In this paper we argue that, with the correct choice of design parameters and top-level aircraft requirements, the addressable market is actually substantial. To...

A New Perspective on Battery-Electric Aviation, Part I: Reassessment of Achievable Range

Thus far, battery-electric propulsion has not been considered a promising pathway to climate-neutral aviation. Given current and expected battery technology, in most literature battery-electric aircraft are only considered feasible for short ranges (< 400 km) and small payloads (< 19 pax). As a result, battery-electric aircraft development...

Range equation for hybrid-electric aircraft with constant power split

There has been a surge in research related to hybrid-/ electric propulsion (HEP) over the past decade, since this technology has the potential to reduce the energy consumption and in-flight emissions of commercial aircraft and, therefore, to bring the aviation sector closer to the sustainability targets established by the European Commission [1]...

Synthesis of Aero-Propulsive Interaction Studies Applied to Conceptual Hybrid-Electric Aircraft Design

This paper presents a synthesis of aero-propulsive interaction studies performed at Delft University of Technology, applied to conceptual aircraft designs with distributed hybrid-electric propulsion (DHEP). The studied aero-propulsive interactions include tip-mounted propulsion, wing leading-edge distributed propulsion and boundary-layer...

Aero-Propulsive Efficiency Requirements for Turboelectric Transport Aircraft

In this paper a design-of-experiments is performed with the objective of determining the improvements in aeropropulsive efficiency required for a reduction in the energy consumption of turboelectric transport aircraft, when compared to conventional, gas-turbine based alternatives. Simplified representations of the powertrain and the...

Preliminary Sizing of a Hybrid-Electric Passenger Aircraft Featuring Over-the-Wing Distributed-Propulsion

This study compares a hybrid-electric aircraft featuring a propulsive empennage and over-the- wing, distributed-propulsion to a conventional regional turboprop. The impact of multiple design parameters, mission requirements, and technology assumptions on maximum take-off mass and payload-range energy efficiency is evaluated, in order to...

Conceptual Assessment of Hybrid Electric Aircraft with Distributed Propulsion and Boosted Turbofans

This paper presents the results of a study into the effect of distributed hybrid-electric propulsion on aircraft performance and characteristics. To size these aircraft, a new preliminary sizing method for hybrid-electric aircraft with distributed propulsion, including aero-propulsive interaction, is combined with a modified Class-II weight...