Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SORCERER (Structural pOweR CompositEs foR futurE civil aiRcraft)

Teaser

Airbus aspires to make all-electric regional aircraft by 2050, to maintain its leading technological and environmental credentials, which are central to its competitive advantage. This goal is extremely challenging, especially for energy storage: replacing the current...

Summary

Airbus aspires to make all-electric regional aircraft by 2050, to maintain its leading technological and environmental credentials, which are central to its competitive advantage. This goal is extremely challenging, especially for energy storage: replacing the current requirement for 30 kg of kerosene per passenger with existing battery technology would introduce an additional 1000 kg/passenger. Structural power composites provide one possible solution: in this concept, the existing fabric of the aircraft structure is made multifunctional, fulfilling both mechanical demands and providing electrical energy storage, simultaneously. By using the same mass for two traditionally disparate functions, considerable weight savings can be obtained; specifically, the potential to make secondary structures or interior parts from structural power materials is very appealing. Furthermore, Airbus has more than 30,000 kg of cables on an A380 aircraft. Distributed energy storage in the airframe and interiors, as well as materials with an intrinsic cable functionality, offer potentially significant weight and volume reductions to the system. With the development of structural power composites in SORCERER, we offer the aircraft industry a stepping-stone for realisation of ‘massless’ energy storage for future aircraft.

The overall objective of the proposed project SORCERER is to advance structural power materials such that they can start to be adopted in Large Passenger Aircraft (LPA), as set out in the call JTI-CS2-2016-CFP03-LPA-02-11 Structural Energy Storage and Power Generation Functionalities in Multifunctional Composite Structures.

There are three overarching objectives of SORCERER:

• Objective 1: We will address the technical issues associated with structural batteries, which are currently at TRL3, to achieve TRL4, such that a laboratory scale element (approximately A4 sized stacked structural battery composite laminate, at a voltage of 24V), is delivered. When the contribution from the protective CFRP plies is included, a capacity of the laminated structure exceeding 100 mAh/g and a shear stiffness in access of 2 GPa are targeted. Furthermore, the materials used should have been assessed against the specifications for future aircraft operational conditions.

• Objective 2: The function of energy generation utilising ion-intercalated carbon fibres has been demonstrated in a much simplified manner at a small lab-scale. We now need to look in depth as to how this function works in more detail, how to improve the efficiency and power output, and move this potential technology up towards TRL3.

• Objective 3: We will address the critical issues associated with structural supercapacitors that hinder adoption of this technology into aerospace platforms. We shall address the current TRL3 technological hurdles such that TRL4 is achieved by integrating supercapacitors into a structural component. This will entail addressing the issues associated with improved power and energy densities, encapsulation and laminate hybridisation, and multifunctional design methodologies. The aspiration is to achieve energy and power densities of 2Wh/kg and 1kW/kg, respectively, coupled with achieving 80% of the fibre dominated performance of conventional composites.

Work performed

Airbus aspires to make all-electric regional aircraft by 2050, to maintain its leading technological and environmental credentials, which are central to its competitive advantage. This goal is extremely challenging, especially for energy storage: replacing the current requirement for 30 kg of kerosene per passenger with existing battery technology would introduce an additional 1000 kg/passenger. Structural power composites provide one possible solution: in this concept, the existing fabric of the aircraft structure is made multifunctional, fulfilling both mechanical demands and providing electrical energy storage, simultaneously. By using the same mass for two traditionally disparate functions, considerable weight savings can be obtained; specifically, the potential to make secondary structures or interior parts from structural power materials is very appealing. Furthermore, Airbus has more than 30,000 kg of cables on an A380 aircraft. Distributed energy storage in the airframe and interiors, as well as materials with an intrinsic cable functionality, offer potentially significant weight and volume reductions to the system. With the development of structural power composites in SORCERER, we offer the aircraft industry a stepping-stone for realisation of ‘massless’ energy storage for future aircraft.

There are three overarching objectives of SORCERER:

• Objective 1: We will address the technical issues associated with structural batteries, which are currently at TRL3, to achieve TRL4, such that a laboratory scale element (approximately A4 sized stacked structural battery composite laminate, at a voltage of 24V), is delivered. When the contribution from the protective CFRP plies is included, a capacity of the laminated structure exceeding 100 mAh/g and a shear stiffness in access of 2 GPa are targeted.

• Objective 2: The function of energy generation utilising ion-intercalated carbon fibres has been demonstrated in a much simplified manner at a small lab-scale. We now need to look in depth as to how this function works in more detail, how to improve the efficiency and power output, and move this potential technology up towards TRL3.

• Objective 3: We will address the critical issues associated with structural supercapacitors that hinder adoption of this technology into aerospace platforms. We shall address the current TRL3 technological hurdles such that TRL4 is achieved by integrating supercapacitors into a structural component. This will entail addressing the issues associated with improved power and energy densities, encapsulation and laminate hybridisation, and multifunctional design methodologies. The aspiration is to achieve energy and power densities of 2Wh/kg and 1kW/kg, respectively, coupled with achieving 80% of the fibre dominated performance of conventional composites.

Final results

As described in the previous Section, there have been considerable steps forward beyond the state of the art in the field of structural power devices.

It is anticipated that structural battery and structural supercapacitor constituents will be further improved, with particular focus on improving mechanical performance. Similarly, device assembly and performance will be investigated further, with an aim to demonstrating a high enough performance to provide weight savings compared to conventional systems. The long-term aspiration of the modelling is to couple the mechanical and electrochemical analysis procedures to establish a holistic multifunctional optimisation methodology. The main focus of the final half of the project is in delivery of the structural power demonstrators, such as that shown in Figure 6. It is anticipated that if these are successful, they will herald considerable adoption of structural power materials by transport and portable electronic industries, leading to a paradigm change in energy storage for these industries.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/.