Integrated Electrical System Model of a More Electric Aircraft Architecture 2008-01-2899

A primary challenge in performing integrated system simulations is balancing system simulation speeds against the model fidelity of the individual components composing the system model. Traditionally, such integrated system models of the electrical systems on more electric aircraft (MEA) have required drastic simplifications, linearizations, and/or averaging of individual component models. Such reductions in fidelity can take significant effort from component engineers and often cause the integrated system simulation to neglect critical dynamic behaviors, making it difficult for system integrators to identify problems early in the design process.

This paper utilizes recent advancements in co-simulation technology (DHS Links) to demonstrate how integrated system models can be created wherein individual component models do not require significant simplification to achieve reasonable integrated model simulation speeds. Such techniques enable the system integrator to observe system dynamics and interactions at fidelities which were previously impractical. This paper utilizes the electrical power system of an MEA to illustrate the capabilities and performance of the proposed approach. Specifically, the paper identifies the system modeling approach, addresses key challenges which were overcome to enable system level modeling at this fidelity, discusses the component models, and presents results from the integrated system model.