ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF POWER CONVERTER TOPOLOGIES FOR APPLICATION IN FUTURE MORE ELECTRIC AIRCRAFT

Abstract

With the aim to improve fuel efficiency and to reduce environmental impacts, aircraft systems are replacing bulky and less efficient non-electrical system with the electrical systems. However, more electrical system requires more electrical power to be generated in the aircraft. The increased consumption of electrical power in both civil and military aircrafts have necessitated to use more efficient electrical power conversion technologies. In this research work, new power converter topologies suitable for the aircraft system are proposed. Both AC-DC and DC-DC type of the converters are proposed for different electrical loads with an aim to improve the performance of the aircraft system. Comprehensive mathematical analysis and design followed by digital simulation of the power converters are presented. Subsequently, hardware prototypes of each converters are built and experimental tests are carried out to verify the benefits of the proposed solutions in comparison to the existing solutions.