Early-Stages Comfort Simulation of an E-Aircraft

Abstract

The electrification of transportation systems is increasingly taking place in our every-day landscape, including aviation applications. Besides obvious challenges in thrust generation and safety due to the powertrain changes, there is another aspect of the multi-physical behavior of an aircraft that can be affected: acoustic noise. It is important for an e-aircraft designer to comprehend the impact of the system-level design choices on the acoustic noise radiation of the e-aircraft, whether one relates to environmental noise pollution or passenger comfort. This paper proposes a functional modelling scheme to allow for the assessment of interior cabin noise in the early stages of the aircraft design process. This is accomplished by the combination of three source processes: the air-borne, wind and structural-borne contributions. The simulation results presented here are qualitatively compared to experimental data collected from a light one-propeller conventional aircraft modified with an electric motor, demonstrating the ability of the proposed approach to match the main features of the measured data.