Abstract
To achieve the sustainable aviation target, the design of a novel propulsion architecture requires the ability to assess its performance and efficiency at air vehicle level. This is particularly important for those architectures requiring fuels with either low specific energy or low energy density, or even both.
This paper presents a consistent modelling tool to enable air vehicle level system performance to be considered during the design and operational analysis of a powerplant. A desirable feature is the ability to adjust the fidelity of each sub-system model according to the objective of a particular modelling phase. An equally important feature is the ability to protect intellectual properties owned by sub-system contributors. The paper is ended with an academic exercise comparing a conventional gas turbine, and a hybrid system of battery-boosted fuel cell powered regional aircraft to illustrate how the tool can be used to investigate challenges in designing a novel propulsion system.
