Assessing the Integration of Electrified On-Board Systems in an MDAO framework for a small transport aircraft

The integration of on-board systems design within the aircraft design process is often
considered only in the late part of the initial design. This is acceptable for civil aircraft using
standard technology systems. However, facing with MEA and AEA concepts and different
possible architectures, the systems design and the assessment of their effects on the overall
aircraft should be moved up in the usual design process. This paper deals with evaluation of
the effect of different on-board systems architecture, with a different electrification level, on
the overall aircraft design. These effects have been evaluated using three different MDA
workflows developed within the AGILE4.0 European research project. The workflows are
defined with an increasing number of disciplines to show how the effect of a proper selection
of a systems architecture is differently caught by each one. In this way it is possible to define
which disciplines should be included for the systems architecture assessment. The results show
a save of 1% of MTOM for the AEA applied to a small turboprop aircraft when only the OBS
mass is assessed. Increasing workflow complexity, adding performance and engine design the
save increase to 1.2%. Finally, the save increases to 1.3% when the effect on engine SFC is
also considered.