Open-Source Framework for Sizing Hybrid and Electric General Aviation Aircraft

This paper presents FAST-OAD-CS23-HE, an open-source framework that has been developed as an extension of the existing FAST-OAD-GA framework to allow for medium fidelity sizing of hybrid and electric aircraft using component models dependent on operating conditions and sizing criteria. It inherits Overall Aircraft Design methodologies from the original framework and adds a library of models to represent physical components for hybrid powertrains. It also adds a generic methodology that enables the extension to multiphysic simulation for the powertrain and the consideration of synergistic interactions and supports the addition of new components. A graph-based description of the powertrain was chosen to easily describe complex powertrains that could be considered in innovative architectures as well as ease the future interfacing with external tools. In addition to that, the graph-based approach allows the automation of the construction of the design problem, which removes the need for users to handle complex scripts. It has been developed after a comparison of existing methodologies and open-source framework in an effort to bridge the gap in terms of preliminary design of electric aircraft. With the models implemented with the default delivery of the code, two aircraft were studied to serve as a reference to showcase the capabilities of this framework.