Battery Evaluation Profiles for

X-57 and Future Urban Electric

Aircraft
Jeffrey Chin
Eliot Aretskin-Hariton, Daniel Ingraham, Dustin Hall,
Sydney Schnulo, Justin Gray, Eric Hendricks
NASA Glenn Research Center
AIAA EATS 2020

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Aircraft designers
need better battery
data to size vehicles

Battery designers
need power profiles
to publish data

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Goals Overview
• Facilitate better design coupling • Vehicle & Mission
between battery and aircraft • Optimization Environment
designers by highlighting
multidisciplinary performance • Battery/Vehicle Coupling
considerations • Results

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 Vehicle and Mission
X-57
• Experimental Platform
• 80 km
• 120knot cruise speed
• 6kft cruise altitude

Quadrotor
• Single and Six Passenger Variants
• 30-120 km
• 1.5km altitude ceiling
• 200m minimum cruise altitude
• Subsystems: Propulsion, Thermal, Mass, Aero, Trajectory
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Battery Capacity is Discharge Profile Dependent

Additional Higher
Cooling Power

V
Increased Lower
Losses Voltage

Higher
Current
P
time
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 Battery knockdowns are significant

System Knockdown ∈ (Wh/kg)

Component 𝜼 @ cruise Cell - 225
Propeller 76% Pack *0.663 (structure) 149
Motor 92% Vehicle *0.8 (depth of discharge) 119
Inverter 97.5%
Wire 99.9%
Battery 89.1% Alt
(ft)
Total 60.7%
Time (s)

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Battery Discharge Efficiency Varies with Pack Size

128s 40p
128s 60p

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 Optimization Environment
DYMOS

USAtm1976

Rotor

Motor

Solver

Zappy

Battery

BodyForces

EOMGroup

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 Thermal Management
Adds Additional Efficiency Penalty
System Knockdown ∈ (Wh/kg)
Cell - 488
Component 𝜼 @ cruise*
Pack *0.769 (structure) 375
Propeller 76%
Vehicle *0.8 (depth of discharge) 300
Gearbox 99%
Motor 97.4%
Inverter 98%
Wire 99.9%
TMS 97.3%
Battery 89.7%

Total 62.6%

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*1pax – 92.6km
 Optimal Trajectories are
Driven by Battery Temperature

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Range impacts both the proportions and scale

540

520

Takeo↵ Mass, kg
500

480

460

440

420

75 100 40
Range, km Ba
Temp
11 Lim
Energy density mostly impacts the scale

540 540
Min
520 520 Min

Takeo↵ Mass, kg

Takeo↵ Mass, kg
500 500

480 480

460 460

440 440

420 420

75 100 40 50 60 300 75 350100 400 40 3.5 5

Range, km Battery Battery
Range,Energy
km Ro
Bat
Temperature Density, W*h/kg Diame
Temp
Limit, C 12 Lim
Energy density impacts thermal efficiency

Minimized Energy vs Minimized Weight

0.3% increase in vehicle weight,
15% increase in TMS weight

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Summary
• Cell-to-air efficiencies of 60-65% are realistic (compared to 25-40% for combustion)

• Optimal trajectories are dictated by battery thermal constraints

• Regressions developed for range, passenger count, energy density have been established

• Range impacts optimal vehicle proportions more than energy density, both impact scale

• Higher energy density batteries create large differences between

minimum energy and minimum weight vehicle designs

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 Forward Work
Investigate more constrained trajectories
• UAM Reference Mission*
Cruise @ 4kft AGL • Back-to-back flights
Climb • Additional Vehicle Types
> 900 fpm No credit • Lift+Cruise
descent
• Tiltrotor/wing
30s hover • More generalized battery
50ft Vertical
TKO @ 100fpm • Additional thermal architectures
Taxi Taxi
• Improved pack-level modeling
Range
Develop comprehensive surrogate models
to better inform battery development

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*Silva, Johnson, Antcliff, Patterson
 Thank You!

Transformative Tools and Technologies Project

Flight Demonstration Capabilities Project

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