Reliability-Oriented Design of Electrified Aircraft Propulsion by Means of Hierarchical Reliability Models

As the global trend of vehicle electrification continues to grow in response to climate change, efforts are being made to implement various degrees of aircraft electrification, from More Electric Aircraft (MEA) to All Electric Aircraft (AEA). However, the technology for implementing electric propulsion systems is still relatively immature, and considerable research is being done to produce lightweight and compact equipment that will satisfy the airworthiness requirement. One of the criteria for airworthiness is the limitation of failure probability of mission-critical equipment. Thus, designing a system with high reliability and fault tolerance is a key goal. Considering the same objective, this paper presents a methodology to evaluate the reliability of electrified aircraft propulsion architectures using the Multilevel Hierarchical Reliability Model. The model is then applied to establish a reliability-oriented design of BAe146 aircraft as an AEA. The results are then presented to highlight the degree of freedom with this methodology.