| Issue |
Mechanics & Industry
Volume 22, 2021
Advances of junior researchers in aerospace sciences: a focus on innovative design
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 19 | |
| Number of page(s) | 15 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/meca/2021012 | |
| Published online | 25 March 2021 | |
Regular Article
THEA-CODE: a design tool for the conceptual design of hybrid-electric aircraft with conventional or unconventional airframe configurations
1
University of Pisa, Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering, Pisa, Italy
2
SkyBox Engineering S.r.l., Pisa, Italy
* e-mail: giuseppe.palaia@phd.unipi.it
Received:
30
July
2020
Accepted:
11
February
2021
The aviation world is dealing with the development of new and greener aviation. The need for reducing greenhouse gas emission as well as the noise is a critical requirement for the aviation of the future. The aviation world is struggling with it, and a compelling alternative can be the electric propulsion. This work aims to present THEA-CODE, a tool for the conceptual design of hybrid-electric aircraft. The tool evaluates the potential benefits of the electric propulsion in terms of fuel burnt and direct and indirect CO2 emissions. THEA-CODE is suitable not only for conventional “wing-tube” configurations but also for unconventional ones, such as the box-wing. The results show a significant reduction of fuel burnt adopting batteries with energy density higher than the current state of the art. A procedure to find the potential best compromise configurations is presented as well.
Key words: Prandtl plane / hybrid-electric configuration / conceptual design / regional aircraft / electric propulsion / climate change / green aviation
© G. Palaia et al., Published by EDP Sciences 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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