Design and analysis of TMS architectures for full-electric aircraft

The present thesis development is part of a project carried out at Leonardo S.p.A, which aims to boost the Thermal Management System preliminary design phase. This project stems from the increasingly evident need to introduce sustainable solutions in the aviation sector that lead to a reduction in emissions. For this purpose, it is imperative to develop a mathematical model that deals with the temperature control of the innovative full-electric powertrain of two selected test cases. Following the study of heat generation in a vehicle that doesn't use fossil fuel to perform a flight and the research on the state of the art of the system used to manage the heat loads generated in an aircraft, this thesis details the analysis and selection of the ideal thermal management system architectures. The goal is to develop a model capable of evaluating all possible combinations of series and parallel connections through which the chosen coolant controls the temperatures of previously identified heat sources placed in precise cooling loops. Next, the model evaluates the performance analysis of the architectures obtained by using the heat balance theory, with the aim of finding the minimum coolant mass flow rate in full compliance with each heat source requirements. Through the integration of this model with the tool previously developed by the Company, the most promising configurations of each loop are sized in order to select the optimal ones in terms of volume and efficiency of the heat exchanger associated with each loop and the mass of the whole system. The entire work presented finds practical application in the development of a tool that the user can employ to analyze a thermal management system architecture of interest, starting from its definition, through thermal analysis, to its sizing.