Overcoming electro-thermal barriers to achieve extreme performance power conversion for more electric aircraft

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in addition to an increasing number of privately funded ventures, has demonstrated growing interest in more electric aircraft (MEA) - flight vehicles where propulsion is partially or totally supplied by electric motors. While hybrid or turbo-electric MEA concepts would still rely on a jet engine power plant to provide electrical power to these electric motors, NASA studies indicate these concepts can result in cleaner, quieter, and more fuel-efficient flight compared to current best-in-class passenger jet aircraft. To achieve this new paradigm in flight, major engineering challenges must be overcome to improve the thermal management, efficiency and power density of the propulsion electronics as well as ensure the high reliability necessary for aviation. This thesis focuses on these challenges in the scope of one block of this electrical system: a high-performance dc-ac converter designed to drive the type of electric machine engineered for electric flight from a high-voltage dc bus that would be present on some MEA concepts. The flying capacitor multilevel topology is demonstrated as an enabling technology for simultaneously achieving high-efficiency and high power-density, with specific consideration given to packaging and implementation. Reliability of the converter is addressed through discussion of on-line health management through the use of a real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) observer.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Pallo, Nathan Andrew

Contributors dc:contributor

• Pilawa-Podgurski, Robert C. N.

• more electric aircraft
• flying capacitor
• thermal
• co-design electrically thin
• multilevel
• propulsion
• hardware-in-the-loop
• fault detection
• observer
• real-time
• thermal management
• additive manufacturing
• heat sink
• inverter
• high specific power
• power density
• extreme performance
• gallium nitride
• wide-bandgap
• high efficiency
• power converter
• dc-dc
• dc-ac
• electro-thermal

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Nathan Pallo

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101087

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101087