Study of application of electromechanical actuators to deploy control surfaces according to More Electrical Aircraft concept.

Abstract

Transportation represents a 20% of green-house effect gases emissions worldwide. There is a trend to move towards greener powered systems, such as electric ones. More Electric Aircraft (MEA) is a new concept into the aircraft industry which is trying to increase the usage of electrically powered systems in aeroplanes. This project reviews the available technologies for MEA in special regard to flight control surfaces actuators. Conventional hydraulic actuators in aircraft systems are low efficient and require high maintenance tasks and a heavy infrastructure. Powered-by-wire systems are being broadly applied into aeroplanes to improve the maintainability, reliability and also manoeuvrability of the next generation of aeroplanes. Throughout the project different fields involved in the effective development of new electromechanical actuators are inspected. First, the generation and power conversion of electric power into a plane. Second, the technologies concerning the building block of an electromechanical actuator in three main aspects: electric layout, mechanical layout and potential failures. Third, the monitoring devices and redundant architecture that would satisfy the continued airworthiness regulations. Finally, a mock-up for simulating and demonstrating purposes is designed and the most proper pattern nowadays for an electromechanical actuator for flight control surfaces is presented together with further work of MEA for the successful implementation of electromechanical actuators into the next generation of aircraft.