Hybridization algorithm for the future of electric aircrafts

past

Master project Autumn 2022

Context

The GENESIS project will gauge the environmental sustainability of electric aircraft (A/C) in a life- cycle-based, foresight perspective to support the development of a technology roadmap for transitioning towards sustainable and competitive electric A/C systems.

To realize future concepts for hybrid electric aircraft, existing technology gaps and barriers for energy storage, supply and transmission will need to be overcome. New and disruptive solutions will be required e.g. for compact and lightweight modules for electrochemical power sources, power electronics and electric drives, as well as for on ground energy supply solutions. Based on the requirement analysis, a bottom-up technology analysis shall be made for the most relevant technologies with a perspective on the selected technology streams and timeframes. Considering the three major technology streams and the relevant system for energy handling the analysis can be structured into sub-tasks oriented towards battery technology, fuel cell technology, technology for turbine / ICE propelled generator sets, and hybrid technologies resulting from their combination as well as on-ground energy supply to aircraft.

Although fuel cell based hybrid systems represent a very large potential for meeting the challenges of an environmentally-sustainable energy supply for aircraft, research is still at its infancy and little results and little implementation in actual aircraft applications have been realized (and none for regional class aircraft). In addition, a complete systematic overview of possibilities for producing hydrogen fuel with low environmental impacts (e.g. from renewable energy sources, like wind power) and for enabling its storage in aircraft remains to be made.

The project

The goal of this master thesis would be to design a hybridization algorithm on the energy system of the aircraft. The model should consider many different variables and find the optimum configuration according to specific requirements. The analysis should be based on technology performances, voltage curves, costs and GHG emissions. In addition, simulations of the functional behavior of the power system (fuel cells combined with batteries) for a regional electric aircraft for 50 pax should be implemented.

This project will be organised in the following steps.

Short overview of the current and forecasts performances of battery and FCs • Development of a hybrid system model to simulate the behavior of the battery and the fuel cell. • Development of the hybridization algorithm to optimize the power system. o Integration of the degradation for batteries based on Open-sesame (https://gitlab.ti.bfh.ch/oss/esrec/open-sesame). o IntegrationofdegradationforFCs • Simulations for different timelines (2030, 2040, 2050+) • Simulations for different fuel – H2 – CH4 • Opportunity to publish an article and be co-author on the next GENESIS report.

Skills

  • Willing in learning flowsheeting software
  • Understanding of energy integration and process optimization
  • Results interpretation and report writing
  • Coding skills: Lua, AMPL, matlab
  • Lectures: Modelling and Optimisation of Energy systems, Energy Conversion and/or Renewable Energy

References

Article on the topic similar to the project: https://doi.org/10.3390/en15093364

Website for information on GENESIS: https://www.genesis-cleansky.eu/

Website for information on BFH-ESReC: https://www.bfh.ch/en/research/research-areas/bfh-centre-energy-storage/

Administrative

This project is a part of collaborative research work between IPESE (EPFL), GEM (EPFL) and BFH energy storage research center.

The project will be supervised by Xinyi (IPESE, GEM), Shivom (IPESE) and Bruno Lemoine (BFH).

If interested, please send your CV, with short motivation letter, to Xinyi/ Shivom.

Location

This research work will be conducted at EPFL, Sion and BFH in Bienne.

Supervisors

Xinyi Wei, xinyi.wei@epfl.ch Dr. Shivom Sharma, shivom.sharma@epfl.ch
Lemoine Bruno Eric Marc bruno.lemoine@bfh.ch