Design Space Exploration of Lithium-Ion Battery Packs for Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft Applications

Distributed hybrid and electric propulsion systems are one of the most promising technologies to reduce aircraft emissions, resulting in research efforts to investigate new architectures and the design of optimal energy management strategies. This work defines the optimal requirements in terms of battery pack sizing and cell technology for a hybrid-electric regional wing-mounted distributed propulsion aircraft through the application of a design space exploration method. The propulsion system considered in this study is a series-parallel hybrid turboelectric power train with distributed electric fans. A set of six lithium-ion battery cell technologies was identified and experimentally characterized, including both commercially available and prototype cells at different combinations of specific energy and power. A model of the aircraft was developed and used to define the optimal energy management strategy for the hybrid turboelectric propulsion system, which was solved using dynamic programming. The design space exploration was conducted by varying the cell technology and battery storage system size; and the effects on fuel consumption, energy management strategy, and thermal management were compared.