Investigating the power and energy flows for a kinetic energy recovery system from a landing aircraft

Abstract

This paper investigates the power and energy flows for a kinetic energy recovery system from a landing aircraft. The concept studied here uses electrical motors installed at the wheels to produce regenerative braking during rollout. This energy is stored temporarily into a flywheel energy storage device and is then transferred back to the wheels for engineless taxiing. The paper develops an aircraft dynamics model to assess the bi-directional power and energy transfer. The model is tested with two case studies; the A320 and the ATR-72 aircraft, thus assessing a wide spectrum for short haul flights. Simulated results show that during normal operation, there is sufficient energy that can be harvested from a landing aircraft that may be used for taxiing purposes. However, the short rollout time places a stringent demand on the system which is limited by the safety aspect of performance limited runways or busy major airports requiring minimum runway occupancy time operation. This limitation can be overcome by increasing the motor torque rating.