1.1 Electric VTOL
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POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Electric VTOL preliminary design and wind tunnel tests Original Electric VTOL preliminary design and wind tunnel tests / Bacchini, Alessandro. - (2020 Jul 22), pp. 1-196. Availability: This version is available at: 11583/2847140 since: 2020-10-01T10:41:58Z Publisher: Politecnico di Torino Published DOI: Terms of use: Altro tipo di accesso This article is made available under terms and conditions as specified in the corresponding bibliographic description in the repository Publisher copyright (Article begins on next page) 09 October 2021 Doctoral Dissertation Doctoral Program in Aerospace Engineering (32th Cycle) Electric VTOL preliminary design and wind tunnel tests Alessandro Bacchini * * * * * * Supervisors Prof. Giulio Romeo, Supervisor Prof. Enrico Cestino, Co-Supervisor Politecnico di Torino March, 2020 This thesis is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution - Noncommercial - NoDerivative Works 4.0 International: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. I hereby declare that, the contents and organisation of this dissertation constitute my own original work and does not compromise in any way the rights of third parties, including those relating to the security of personal data. ………………………………..... Alessandro Bacchini Turin, February 29, 2020 ii Summary Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft have the potential to transform the transportation industry. They fly over traffic directly to their destination, drastically reducing commuting time. Electric motors and batteries developed for electric cars power them, and propellers and ducted fans generate the thrust required for vertical and horizontal flight. Although many start-ups and many established companies are designing and testing their prototypes, there is little academic published data. Most designs are kept secret to shield them from the competitors. The goal of this research is to investigate the broad field of eVTOL design and focus on one of its aspects, the retraction of the lift+cruise takeoff propellers inside the fuselage to reduce drag. First, an analytical toolset of equations is collected to evaluate eVTOL performances. Next, VTOL configurations from the 1950s up to the present day are presented, and the three main eVTOL configurations are compared, assessing the performances of a prototype for each one of them. Then, the power sources available are presented, discussing batteries, fuel cells, and hybrids. Finally, the propeller retraction system is investigated building and testing in the wind tunnel a model. Two exotic eVTOL designs are also discussed. The eVTOL for the exploration of Titan highlighted the effects of gravity and the density on its performances. The supersonic eVTOL showed the procedure to derive power source requirements from an existing design. This work successfully highlights the crucial aspects of eVTOL design. The eVTOL range depends not only on the specific energy of the batteries but also on the lift to drag ratio and on the battery-mass ratio. Efficient hover requires a large disk actuator area, and coaxial rotors and ducted fans are valid alternatives to the standard rotor. EVTOL wing can be designed for an efficient cruise with no takeoff and landing distance requirements as conventional airplanes have. The configuration comparison showed that each configuration is best suited to a different mission. Multirotors are efficient in hover and best suited to short-range missions. Vectored thrust eVTOLs are efficient in cruise and best suited to long- range missions. Lift plus cruise eVTOLs are a compromise, but they are slowed down by the drag of the lift propellers. The power sources were analyzed, evaluating their specific energy and specific power. The high efficiency of the battery and the factors affecting its life are discussed. The specific fuel consumption of the fuel cells is computed. Hydrogen storage is crucial to the fuel cell system specific energy. Cryogenic liquid storage iii offers the best gravimetric efficiencies, but it poses the biggest challenges. Metal- hydrides and other chemical compounds are options with lower gravimetric efficiencies than compressed hydrogen. The structural analysis of a compressed hydrogen tank was performed, evaluating its gravimetric efficiency. Hybrids were discussed, including internal combustion engine plus battery, gas turbine plus battery, and fuel cell, battery, and supercapacitor. The lift propellers retraction system is investigated, building a model based on the Mini Talon drone and testing it in the wind tunnel. The drag reduction measured is around 30%, and this value is used to estimate the performances of a passenger eVTOL and a surveillance drone employing it. The Kitty Hawk Cora data is used to evaluate the passenger eVTOL performances with the retraction system, and the range and the cruise speed found were higher than the baseline. The advantages for a surveillance drone are limited because it is designed to watch over its target area for as long as possible, and an increase in flight speed has minor advantages. iv Acknowledgment I want to thank my supervisors Prof. Enrico Cestino and Prof. Giulio Romeo, for their continuous support during these years of Ph.D. Their experience has guided me and made this dissertation possible. I would also like to thank Prof. Dries Verstraete for hosting me at the University of Sydney and supervising my work there. His expertise guided me and helped me perform the tests. I wish to thank all my colleagues and friends at Politecnico di Torino and the University of Sydney for the fantastic time spent together. I want to express my deepest gratitude to Benjamin Van Magill for 3D-printing the models, to Dr. Derrick Ho for teaching me how to solve all the mechanical problems I faced and Dr. Tamas Bykerk for teaching me how to use the wind tunnel. To all my friends Filippo, Denis, Matteo, Luca, Matteo, Nicoletta, and Andrea at Polito and Amrit, John, Louis, and Tomas at Usyd, thank you for the beautiful memories. My family, Mum, Dad, and Elena have inspired and supported me during my Ph.D. studies. I am grateful to them for all the opportunities they gave me, for everything they taught me, and for the amazing time spent together. I wish to thank all my volleyball friends for having had a lot of fun together, and my high school friends Gnuz, Pippo, Tommi, Nico, Ale, Dello, Cesta, Fogli, Cesco, Pasku, and Salo for their long time friendship. Finally, I would like to thank my girlfriend Roneda, for having supported and loved me deeply during the last seven years. v Contents Acknowledgment ..................................................................................................... v List of tabels ............................................................................................................ ix List of figures .......................................................................................................... xi 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Electric VTOL ........................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Advantages of the electric propulsion ............................................ 3 1.1.2 Zee Aero ......................................................................................... 3 1.1.3 Joby Aviation ................................................................................. 5 1.1.4 Lilium ............................................................................................. 8 1.1.5 E-Hang ........................................................................................... 8 1.1.6 Aurora Flight Sciences ................................................................... 9 1.1.7 Airbus A3 ...................................................................................... 10 1.1.8 Uber Elevate ................................................................................. 11 1.1.9 NASA Greased Lightning ............................................................ 11 1.1.10 Pipistrel 801 ................................................................................ 12 1.2 Research objectives .......................................................................... 13 1.3 Overview by chapter ........................................................................ 13 1.4 Unique and novel contributions ....................................................... 14 1.5 Research Publications ...................................................................... 15 1.5.1 Journal papers ............................................................................... 15 1.5.2 Conference papers ........................................................................ 15 2. Performances ................................................................................................... 16 2.1 Comparison with existing alternatives ............................................. 16 2.1.1 Helicopters ................................................................................... 16 2.1.2 Land transportation ...................................................................... 18 2.2 Electric airplane range ..................................................................... 20 2.2.1 Lift to drag ratio and flight speed ................................................. 23 2.2.2 Battery-mass