Electric Power Systems and Components for All-Electric Aircraft

Dear Colleagues,

The transportation sector generates a remarkable share (the largest share (28%) in the U.S.) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To achieve net-zero emission, all-electric transportation has been targeted, making all-electric cars, trucks, trains, aircraft, and ships a likely realization. While electric vehicles are close to maturity, the aviation industry is in its infancy regarding electrification for commercial aircraft. Large aircraft, including narrow-body and wide-body aircraft, are responsible for more than 75% of aviation GHG emissions; this is likely to worsen with the historical 4–5% annual growth in air travel. There are two categories of aircraft electrification: more electric aircraft (MEA) and all-electric aircraft (AEA). An MEA simply replaces a subsystem, such as a hydraulically driven actuator, with an electric alternative. On the other hand, an AEA is comprised of electrically driven subsystems, as well as having thrust power fully provided by electrochemical energy units (EEUs). For wide-body AEA, this difference is substantial, since the required thrust power is ~25 MW, and non-thrust demands add another 1 MW. This results in significant challenges for optimizing the electric power system (EPS) design for AEA, where the maximum component power density must be achieved by minimizing both mass and volume. The topic of this Special Issue is electric power systems for AEA, and includes topics such as 1) the design and optimization of power systems for AEA, 2) the design, construction, and testing of all components of electric power systems for AEA, such as circuit breakers, power cables, motors, EEUs (battery, fuel cell, supercapacitors, etc.), converters, and storage resources. We are also interested in fundamental/basic research on the influence of low pressures at cruising height on different phenomena such as arc, arc tracking, and partial discharges.

Dr. Mona Ghassemi
Guest Editor

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