Finalized Design and Performance Analysis of a Hybrid Turbo-Electric Regional Jet for the NASA ULI Program

Abstract

Under the NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) program, a team formed by multi-disciplinary universities are collaborating on the advancement of technologies of a hybrid turbo-electric regional jet which aims to enter service in the 2030 timeframe. The major focus is to mature currently available technologies on motor drives, power electronics, batteries, and the corresponding thermal management systems. The tasks presented in paper is designing and sizing the airframe and propulsion system, integrating the subsystems developed by other institutes to the aircraft, designing the global-level thermal management systems for the integrated motor drive and the battery, as well as conducting system-level and mission-level performance analysis. In this paper, the architectures of the aircraft, propulsion system, and the thermal management systems are firstly shown. Then the corresponding modeling and analysis methodologies are discussed. Finally, the results including the fuel economy and thermal management are presented, along with a transient analysis on the propulsion system.