Optimal Design and Synthesis of MEA Power System Architectures considering Reliability Specifications

IEEE Aircraft electrification requires novel designs to supply the growing demand for electric power on-board through efficient and reliable production and distribution of electrical energy. Moreover, the aircraft power system will be a key enabler for the integration of future technologies. Pledging to these intentions, we propose a formulation to synthesize a power system architecture that complies with safety specifications following a Platform Based Design methodology that optimizes the main aerospace drivers. Due to the non-linear nature of the design problem, this paper presents reliability based MILP network design formulations for topology synthesis. The novelty of this approach relies in the adoption of network design optimization for MEA power system construction that allows explicit design formulations as MILP problems. This approach will provide an effective way to include safety specifications by introducing reliability and resiliency constraints

Accelerated Electromechanical Modeling of a Distributed Internal Combustion Engine Generator Unit

Distributed generation with a combustion engine prime mover is still widely used to supply electric power in a variety of applications. These applications range from backup power supply systems and combined wind-diesel generation to providing power in places where grid connection is either technically impractical or financially uneconomic. Modelling of such systems as a whole is extremely difficult due to the long-time load profiles needed and the computational difficulty of including small time-constant electrical dynamics with large time-constant mechanical dynamics. This paper presents the development of accelerated, reduced-order models of a distributed internal combustions engine generator unit. Overall these models are shown to achieve a massive improvement in the computational time required for long-time simulations while also achieving an extremely high level of dynamic accuracy. It is demonstrated how these models are derived, used and verified against benchmark models created using established techniques. Throughout the paper the modelling set as a whole, including multi level detail, is presented, detailed and finally summarised into a crucial tool for general system investigation and multiple target optimisation