Modeling, Simulation and Control of Turboelectric Propulsion Systems for More Electric Aircrafts using Modelica

As aviation industry moves towards More Electric Aircraft technologies, electrification of non-propulsive loads is becoming more common. Moreover, new designs for electrified propulsive systems have been proposed in the literature, drawing attention from the aviation sector. Amidst the proposed topologies, turboelectric architectures present a set of benefits, becoming attractive for more electric powertrains. Given this context, this paper presents Modelica as the means for developing models to assess the dynamic performance for the different possible turboelectric architectures that can be adopted by industry in the next few years. Individual components have their mathematical models presented along with their respective Modelica implementation. Two different possible architectures are assembled using the Modelica models and their dynamic performances over a 400-second sample flight mission are assessed. The dynamic simulations provide insights for choosing system’s parameters, controllers’ design and system sizing.