Performance calculation for hybrid-electric aircraft integrating aero-propulsive interactions

The potential benefits of hybrid-electric or full-electric propulsion have led to an increased interest in this topic over the past decade. Hence the need to develop modern and innovative methods to analyze the performance of aircraft with unconventional propulsion systems. The purpose of this paper is to describe and apply a simulation-based algorithm integrating aeropropulsive effects for the mission analysis of conventional, hybrid-electric, and full-electric aircraft. The method composes the analysis toolbox of the aforementioned software, HEAD (Hybrid-Electric Aircraft Designer), developed by the DAF Research Group. Analysis toolbox has to perform a detailed mission simulation of a generic airplane. The proposed application deals with the evaluation of the effects on performance that wingtip-mounted propellers and distributed electric propulsion on regional turboprop category. The reference aircraft is similar to an ATR-42.