POLITECNICO DI MILANO - DIPARTIMENTO DI INGEGNERIA AEROSPAZIALE NUMERICAL MODELS FOR AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS LECTURE NOTES, VERSION 2009 Chapter

r 1 Aircraft Systems

Chapter 1

Aircraft Systems

Authors:

Luigi Puccinelli Paolo Astori

These lecture notes, written for the students at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, can be freely downloaded and used without permission of the copyright holder for educational purposes only. If any institution makes use of these lecture notes, a notification to Paolo.Astori@Polimi.it is welcome, to have a feedback of the interest. Any commercial use is prohibited.

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POLITECNICO DI MILANO - DIPARTIMENTO DI INGEGNERIA AEROSPAZIALE NUMERICAL MODELS FOR AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS LECTURE NOTES, VERSION 2009 Chapter 1 Aircraft Systems

1.1 Introduction
Traditionally an aircraft is considered to be made of three parts: structure, propulsion and systems, roughly evidenced in fig. 1.1. This division has historical origins, but now it is maintained because of the growing of competences and specialisations. A structure equipped with propulsion may in some way take-off and have a sort of motion in air (that hardly can be called a flight), but systems play the important role to make the take-off, flight and landing controllable and extend its envelope. Then any aircraft has systems, with a different extent depending on the aircraft category and complexity. The systems that can be present on an aircraft are as follows:

Fig 1.1 Structure, propulsion and systems

hydraulic; electric; pneumatic; flight control; landing gear; fuel; flight and service lighting; environmental control; weather hazards protection; emergency; flight instruments and avionics.

This course will focus on hydraulic, electric, pneumatic, flight control, landing gear and environmental control systems. The first three systems are fundamental, because they have the task to transfer energy and operate all the other systems on board. A modern aircraft of large dimensions has always a hydraulic, electrical and pneumatic system, that in normal conditions are operated by converting a small part of the mechanical power from the propulsion system to hydraulic, electrical and pneumatic power respectively. The generated power can then be transferred according to the needs. The possible use of this power is indicated in tab. 1.1 and hereafter clarified: motion of surfaces and landing gear can be obtained by means of mechanical energy (push-pull rods and cable-pulley systems moved by the muscular effort from the pilot) on small and well compensated aircraft, where the hinge moments and loads are in general low; on larger vehicles hydraulic and/or electric actuators are necessary to develop the requested force and increase stability; fuel distribution on turbine aircraft is normally obtained by electric pumps; mechanical or gravity systems are more common on small airplanes; lighting is obviously obtained from an electric network;
These lecture notes, written for the students at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, can be freely downloaded and used without permission of the copyright holder for educational purposes only. If any institution makes use of these lecture notes, a notification to Paolo.Astori@Polimi.it is welcome, to have a feedback of the interest. Any commercial use is prohibited.

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POLITECNICO DI MILANO - DIPARTIMENTO DI INGEGNERIA AEROSPAZIALE NUMERICAL MODELS FOR AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS LECTURE NOTES, VERSION 2009 Chapter 1 Aircraft Systems

environmental control is obtained by suitable thermodynamic cycles of external air, supplied by the pneumatic system and controlled by electric signals; active emergency devices (fire detectors and suppressors, ejection seats, etc) are powered usually by the electric system; instruments, apart from the compass and the classic air-instruments, are electrically operated, some of them pneumatically;
Operated system Type of power system Mechanical Hydraulic Electric Pneumatic Flight control Landing gear Fuel Lights Env. control Weather hazards Emerg. Instruments

Tab 1.1 Use of the different types of power on board

The list of systems mentioned above suggests also the weight influence of the systems on the overall aircraft weight: depending on aircraft category, the systems weight ranges from around 12% to 30% of the maximum take-off weight.

1.2 Choice of the power system

If one does not consider mechanical power coming from the pilot activity, the previous section says that three types of power can be easily generated on board and transferred to the necessary areas of the vehicle: hydraulic, electric and pneumatic. The three corresponding systems can be seen as composed by 4 stages: generation, control, transfer and use, as shown in the block diagram of fig. 1.2.
GENERATION ENGINE

CONTROL

TRANSFER

USE

The engine is the main power source on board. By means of gearboxes, hydraulic pumps and electric generators are operated. By means of volumetric compressors or by directly bleeding air from compressor stages of a turbine engine, the pneumatic system is operated. The energy (pressure or electric tension) is controlled and transferred to the uses.

A first choice concerns the operation of movable parts (flight control and landing gear). For reasons of stability, control and efficiency, they can be moved by hydraulic and electric actuators, occasionally by pneumatic actuators. The reason will be more comprehensible in the chapter about hydraulic systems, but is strictly related to problems of compressibility of the mean. Actuators are motors, i.e. devices that convert hydraulic or electric energy into mechanical energy. Normally hydraulic actuators are preferred, in terms or weight per unit power, for linear motions and high loads; electric motors perform better for high speed rotating motions and moderate torque. But other choice criteria can be used, mainly related to installation problems: for instance in areas of the aircraft where only electric components are present, the installation of one hydraulic component, even in case it is more efficient, may result in an increase of the design complexity and aircraft weight.
These lecture notes, written for the students at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, can be freely downloaded and used without permission of the copyright holder for educational purposes only. If any institution makes use of these lecture notes, a notification to Paolo.Astori@Polimi.it is welcome, to have a feedback of the interest. Any commercial use is prohibited.

Fig. 1.2 System stages

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POLITECNICO DI MILANO - DIPARTIMENTO DI INGEGNERIA AEROSPAZIALE NUMERICAL MODELS FOR AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS LECTURE NOTES, VERSION 2009 Chapter 1 Aircraft Systems

Advanced studies are considering now the possibility of all-electric aircraft, but the current philosophy is still to share the tasks between hydraulic and electric system.

1.3 Requirements
The requirements of a system are not only to perform its task properly, but also in a wide range of environmental conditions, with high reliability, safety and low maintenance costs. The environmental conditions are associated to pressure (stress state in components), humidity (corrosion), temperature (characteristics of fluids used in the systems), density (cooling properties), vibration and acceleration that the aircraft may experience in its operative life. Then any component of the system must be sized and manufactured keeping all these data in consideration. Reliability is the ability of a component to keep its performance unaltered in the long period. Reliability is expensive, because requires an oversizing or a redundancy in the system, but is necessary. Many components on board are not designed for infinite life, but have a specified mean time between failures that must be considered for maintenance. Moreover the malfunction or failure of a component may result in a variety of effects that must be considered in system design, ranging from a minor flight incident with a simple limitation of the current mission to a catastrophic accident. Safety of systems is still an important concern. Two aspects can be outlined from the safety point of view: 1. misuse of system; 2. contribution of system in post-crash hazards. Misuse of system has sometime been cause of severe accidents. For instance a bad setting of the air-altimeter in the approach phase, or a wrong operation of the de-icing procedure. As far as crash is concerned, the main problem due to systems is the contribution in increasing hazards for occupants: fire, toxic smoke, penetration of system parts into cabin, etc. Intensive research is devoted to safety nowadays, finalised to reduce the misuse of systems and increase crash survivability.

1.4 Design and sizing

The design of a system includes its layout and installation on the vehicle and may have important influences on the structural design. For instance some parts of the structure must be manufactured to allow installation of hydraulic pipelines or electric wirings. Modern airplane design considers both structure and systems in an integrated approach: the complete layout of systems can be analysed by CAD-based software together with the structure, allowing for modification of systems or structural details and optimisation of system weight. The sizing or dimensioning procedure of a system follows the classic guidelines of engineering: sizing is done considering the worst conditions and then oversizing with a safety factor. This has different meanings for each system. First of all the three fundamental power systems will be sized considering all the uses that must be operated during a full mission profile, including emergency. The actuators will be sized considering a low energy supply (pressure or electric tension) and the highest loads on the piston. The landing gear will be sized for maximum landing weight, high vertical velocity. Wheel brakes will be sized for highest landing velocity, high external temperature, and no contribution from additional braking devices (airbrakes, spoiler, thrust reverse). Air conditioning will consider a temperature range starting from night fly at high altitude to ground parking in warm weather.
These lecture notes, written for the students at Politecnico di Milano, Italy, can be freely downloaded and used without permission of the copyright holder for educational purposes only. If any institution makes use of these lecture notes, a notification to Paolo.Astori@Polimi.it is welcome, to have a feedback of the interest. Any commercial use is prohibited.

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