Multidisciplinary Design and performance of the ONERA Hybrid Electric Distributed Propulsion concept (DRAGON)
Peter Schmollgruber, David Donjat, Michael Ridel, Italo Cafarelli, Olivier Atinault, Christophe François, Bernard Paluch
Abstract
The reduction of carbon emissions is a key objective for the entire Air Transportation ecosystem. At aircraft level, many options are investigated to reduce fuel burn. Within the European Programme Clean Sky 2, ONERA identified Distributed Electric Propulsion as a potential solution to improve significantly the propulsion chain efficiency. In order to mature this technology for transonic cruise speeds, the research concept DRAGON has been defined. Following an initial multidisciplinary assessment, a second set of expert evaluations consolidated the knowledge on Distributed Electric Propulsion and de-risked the challenges associated to its integration on a Large Passenger Aircraft transporting 150 passengers. At mission level, DRAGON and its thrust distribution through an electrical architecture shows interesting benefits in terms of fuel consumption (-7%) with respect to a reference turbofan aircraft with same EIS on a design range of 2750 nm. Last, it is shown that the evolution of the electrical components regarding not only power densities but also efficiencies will have a strong impact on the technology interest and implementation.