Co-design and Prototyping of a Wide Bandgap-Based Two-Level Inverter for Variable Speed Electrical Propulsion Drives

Abstract:
We introduce an assessment framework for co-design of a propulsion drivetrain for a small hybrid electric aircraft application. The traditional approach is enhanced by considering a high-frequency representation of the inverter, electrical cables and electrical machine. The parasitic effects and interactions in an electrical drive can be addressed at an early design stage. The considered parasitic effects are overvoltage at the machine terminals, non-uniform distribution of voltage across the stator winding and stress on the mechanical bearings. Time-domain simulations and a prototype of 50kW electrical propulsion drive is used to outline the proposed approach.