Energy Storage System Sizing for a Twin Engine Four-Seat Aircraft Electrical Propulsion

The research in aviation is recently focusing on the so-called All Electric Aircraft which only utilizes the electric power to supply propulsion and all the airframe systems. Electric propulsion systems require a strategy of on-board energy management and of optimization criteria for electrical drives and energy storage systems to reduce the weights and balance the loads on-board the aircraft. The sizing of the energy storage system has a significant impact on the range, the energy consumption, and the related energy cost of the aircraft. In the paper is proposed an optimized sizing procedure for the battery energy storage system of an AEA, first is defined and modeled the propulsion system, then the optimized procedure is described and validated by means of simulations in case of a commercial twin engine four-seat aircraft. The study carried out an analysis of feasibility of all electric aircraft, focusing on one of the most critical parameters which is the energy storage mass. This parameter has a great influence on the aircraft performance, due in particular to the low energy density of the actual energy storage systems, which determines that a greatest part of energy is used for the battery transportation. The results reported and discussed at the end of the paper show the good results in terms of mass reduction and energy saving obtained by validating the proposed sizing procedure without affecting the safety.