New Preliminary Sizing Methodology for a Commuter Airplane with Hybrid-Electric Distributed Propulsion

Abstract : Following the latest aggressive emission and external noise reduction targets set by the aviation industry, there now exists an increasing amount of research and emphasis on changing the propulsion and power systems of aircraft. With the aim of expanding upon the current repository of studies focusing on tightly-coupled and integrated hybrid-electric propulsion systems, a new approach to the preliminary sizing of such systems is introduced herein.The purpose of this approach is to establish a methodology for the fully integrated prelimi- nary sizing of hybrid-electric airplanes. The specificity of the established methodology is its ability to cover a variety of implementations on different hybrid-electric airplanes. Furthermore, a sensitivity study is performed to assess the impact of hybridization ratio on airplane max takeoff weight. Finally, in order to assess its accuracy and validity, due to the lack of data on hybrid- electric airplanes the sizing method was applied to the aircraft chosen as baseline for this study, Pilatus PC-12. The obtained results were compared to the existing set of data on this airplane, and the match between the two was found to be satisfactory.