Someone4 hours ago
Not “30% fuel efficiency”, but an improvement of 30%.
FTA: “The project aims to demonstrate up to 30% improved fuel efficiency for a typical 250-nautical-mile regional turboprop mission”
c0n5pir4cy3 hours ago
I was so confused by the title - I thought jets were fairly efficient at ~40%-50% of theoretical maximum and turbofans can't be that far behind. It would maybe make sense for a single prop aircraft.
30% improvement makes much more sense.
avidiax3 hours ago
I think there are startups making a similar sort of engine for general aviation. It's good to see that there is development of the same idea for commercial aviation.
This isn't like a hybrid car. It's a parallel hybrid, where the gas engine is just big enough for efficient cruise at altitude, and the electric motor/generator provides extra power for takeoff and ascent (or go-around power), and then charges slowly during cruise if needed.
This means that the battery is quite small and light, having only enough charge to take off and get to altitude.
I suspect that this system probably improves safety as well, if architected properly. If one or both of the gas engines fail, so long as they are not seized, that electric motor can still provide some power for diversion.
kspacewalk23 hours ago
>This isn't like a hybrid car. It's a parallel hybrid, where the gas engine is just big enough for efficient cruise at altitude, and the electric motor/generator provides extra power for takeoff and ascent (or go-around power), and then charges slowly during cruise if needed.
Isn't that exactly what hybrid cars (e.g. Prius) are? Extremely efficient gas engine for highway cruising, but insufficient for acceleration, which is aided by electric motors?
Tade03 hours ago
The Prius uses a planetary gear set to blend power of the engine with that of the two motor-generators.
Both the engine and motors are used at all speeds. Particularly during highway acceleration the entire assembly rotates in the same direction.
dgfl2 hours ago
This is a great related watch if you have some time to kill: https://youtu.be/KnUFH5GX_fI
delecti2 hours ago
That's such a fantastic video. I never totally grasped why hybrids were so much more efficient, because my naive assumptions about how they worked were so simplistic. The real-time graphs he showed were excellent for making his points.
cogman1019 minutes ago
TC is filled with these sorts of videos. If you have time to burn then they are basically all this quality. His interests are also just wildly all over the place. From Christmas lights to dishwashers to coffee machines you just don't know what the next video will be.
arijun3 hours ago
The Prius is in series, or something like it.
idontwantthis3 hours ago
No it’s not. The majority of power comes from the engine. It drives the electric motor mechanically, using it as a transmission. It is not just charging the battery.
arijun2 hours ago
Sorry, I meant in the low speed, high acceleration regime (maybe easily confounded with takeoff?). There the engine will turn one motor to generate electricity, which will then power the second motor, like a series hybrid.
idontwantthis3 hours ago
Hybrid cars are mostly parallel hybrids. Only the Chevy Volt comes to mind as a serial hybrid.
mikepavone2 hours ago
Chevy Volt was still a parallel hybrid. The gasoline engine was used for driving the wheels for highway cruise because it was more efficient. I think the range extender version of the BMW i3 was a pure serial hybrid though
projektfu9 minutes ago
The BMW i3.
SoftTalker3 hours ago
The fuel burn of take-off and climb substantially lightens the aircraft for cruise. Electric batteries have no such effect, you're carrying all that dead weight for the rest of the flight. This reduces the passenger or cargo capacity of the aircraft, which reduces potential revenue.
And what if you need two go-arounds?
repiret2 hours ago
Don’t conflate airplanes with rockets.
On an airplane, most of the energy in cruise is spent overcoming parasitic drag, not induced drag. It’s spent pushing the airmass out of the way as it moves forward, not creating lift to stay aloft.
For that reason, a change in weight does not significantly change cruise fuel usage.
Weight is still precious, but that’s because airplanes’ load are more often weight constrained than volume constrained, and capital and operating costs are such that you want to maximize the load.
arijun3 hours ago
> you're carrying all that dead weight for the rest of the flight
If you're recharging the batteries for extra go-arounds during landing, they are as dead weight as the fuel you would otherwise reserve for that purpose. And if you have 30% more efficient engines, meaning less fuel and smaller engines, it's possible you could come out ahead, weight-wise.
> what if you need two go-arounds
I assume that a go-around requires less sustained power output than a full climb from takeoff, so you will probably get more than one go-around anyway, and we don't know how much over-capacity they're designing for. In any case, any design will require tradeoffs in safety, and having more engine-out capabilities might improve safety enough to overcome the higher risk with go-arounds.
Not saying this project is will work out or that you're even wrong necessarily (this could be the equivalent of a concept car for Pratt & Whitney).
vablings2 hours ago
Due to various penalties, wind resistance. gear down and aircraft configuration. A go-around consumes a huge amount of fuel, not as much as climbing to cruise but its alot
dmitrygr2 hours ago
> I assume that a go-around requires less sustained power output than a full climb from takeoff,
No.
Source 1: PE = mgh
Source 2: am pilot
fransje26an hour ago
So, for a Dash 8-100, at 13,000 kg, disregarding drag, engine efficiency, etc, to take-off and climb to 1000m and accelerate to 150 knots (77 m/s), you will need:
- 13000 * 9.81 * 1000 = 127.5 MJ, to reach your altitude
- 0.5 * 13000 * (77)^2 = 38.5 MJ, to accelerate to your climbing speed.
Total: 127 + 38.5 = 166 MJ, or about 46.11 kWh
For a go around, re-accelerating from 1.3 * stall speed (85 knots / 44 m/s) to your climbing speed, and going to your missed approach altitude of 1000 m, you will need:
- 13000 * 9.81 * 1000 = 127.5 MJ, to reach your altitude
- 0.5 * 13000 * (77^2 - 44^2) = 26 MJ to accelerate back to your climbing speed.
Total: 127 + 26 = 153 MJ, or about 42.5 kWh
usrusr31 minutes ago
Nice to see some numbers. So for the peak load situations, a Dash 8-100 would not require a battery bigger than that a short range BEV ("city", though in reality the short range BEV use case is more for the rural equivalent of stuff that would be walkable in a city setting). And that's even before considering the energy contributed by the fossil fuel engine.
"13000 * 9.81 * 1000 = 127.5 MJ, to reach your altitude"
Presumably quite a bit of that would be harvested back during the descent that follows. The conventional engine would still need some excess power (relative to cruise load) to fill the gap left by drag and imperfect circle efficiency of the electric motor/generator, but mass x altitude is stored energy, not lost. (I'm still talking about the "what if we need a second abort" of the root post)
arijun2 hours ago
You don't do a full climb after a go-around, so the heights are not equal, and the mass is less since you've expended fuel. You also retain some kinetic energy but I assume that is closer to a negligible effect.
Also, PE = mgh is probably an not a great formula for energy cost of takeoff/go-around, as there are probably large costs it ignores (gravity loss, less efficient engine use, maybe less efficient turbines?).
For your source 2 I have no rebuttal so will have to defer to you, but would ask for an explanation.
SoftTalker2 hours ago
Not a pilot, but on approach for landing you bleed off a lot of energy. For a go-around you need to reverse your descent and build up enough energy to fly away again. Take-off/Go-around tends to be the same throttle setting, AFAIK. Of course it also depends on how early you decide to throw away the approach and go around. Doing it at 1000 feet is different from bouncing it off the runway.
serf2 hours ago
but the point they were making is that it inevitably takes less energy to get to a level flying state (in similar weather conditions) due to fuel consumption.
so, unless the pilot is fighting weather it would make sense that equal throttle levels and equal pitch plans in equal weather conditions would require less and less fuel burn until the tanks are empty.
dmitrygr2 hours ago
> You don't do a full climb after a go-around,
an IFR missed approach can have you climb quite high, especially in areas with serious terrain. Example: https://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/2607/00346IZLZ17R.PDF airport is at 4400 feet over sea level, but missed approach says: climb to 13,000. Also, some go arounds will lead you to have to divert to an alternate airport, getting there may require climbing high to clear terrain or gaining required engine efficiency to fly the distance.
> And the mass is less since you've expended fuel
In our theoretical aircraft with batteries, mass is the same.
> You also retain some kinetic energy but I assume that is closer to a negligible effect.
Negligible indeed.
arijun2 hours ago
> you climb quite high, especially in areas with serious terrain.
Interesting, thanks.
> In our theoretical aircraft with batteries, mass is the same.
The fuel that's expended during cruise reduces the mass.
card_zero2 hours ago
Time to invent regenerative air brakes, like fold-out windmills.
dmitrygran hour ago
0cf8612b2e1e3 hours ago
Energy density of liquid fuels cannot be beat by batteries, so this is not competitive if you are looking to maximize cargo. However, there are plenty of short haul flights: private jets, island hopping, regional routes where you need to move little mass.
usrusran hour ago
"And what if you need two go-arounds?"
Easy: you don't try the second landing approach before the battery is sufficiently recharged to contain enough energy for the second abort. Chances are this does not take any longer than going through the pattern anyways.
The saving is not just the dead weight of the bigger engine you'd need to do take-off, climb and abort without electric assist, it's also the fuel saved during cruise from running an engine that is completely designed efficiency at cruise load instead of for some compromise between cruise efficiency and sufficient peak power for start and abort.
xattt3 hours ago
Exactly. A hybrid passenger car can tolerate unpredictable power output that may come with an auxiliary power setup that may or may not be available when stronger dynamics are called for.
A plane doesn’t have this luxury and needs predictable output. The fossil fuel engine either needs a sacrificial “overboost” mode for emergencies (at the cost of wear/long-term longevity), or has to be sized for full power at the ultimate cost of efficiency.
[deleted]2 hours agocollapsed
Tade03 hours ago
On anything but very short flights most of the fuel is spent on cruising.
dmoy2 hours ago
I would classify 290 miles as a very short flight, that's like 1-2 hours or something?
hobonation3 hours ago
Valid.
Perhaps it's not all negative: the electric portion could give a pilot a bit more glide than the gas portion dies.
_diyaran hour ago
This is very clever: instead of focusing on electric only flight, just make the existing engine fly in the most efficient window while the electric engine buffers the flight profile.
Like a big-boy prius.
soperj3 hours ago
Only AI stories show up now, so they had to call it an Ai craft I guess.
krunck2 hours ago
I wonder if during descent instead of cutting power alot to control speed it can instead use the energy to charge the batteries.
ggreer38 minutes ago
I'm not sure how that would help. If you're descending it's probably to land, and then you can recharge the batteries with electricity from the ground. That would be more efficient (and cheaper) than burning fuel to charge them.
ck2an hour ago
anything that gets rid of leaded fuel on prop aircraft is a win even if 0% efficiency improvement
Schiendelman7 minutes ago
If you care about leaded fuel, the culprit now is general aviation - small airports, Cessnas, not commercial flights. If you go work on it, let me know, I'll help you!
jabl19 minutes ago
This is about replacing a turboprop with a slightly smaller turboprop and electric motor/generator+battery. The turboprop burns Jet-A, not leaded aviation gasoline.
mschuster912 hours ago
1300 HP electric engine power, now that's an achievement.
I do wonder if prop engines can act as "windmills" (similar to turbine engines, which often in accidents still have been found to provide a bit of hydraulic power), which means regenerative braking could be used instead of speedbrakes.
nradovan hour ago
There would never be a reason to use windmilling props in flight for electrical generation. Even when descending, airliners like the Dash 8 need at least some forward thrust in order to maintain control and stay on the glide slope. They only use reverse thrust for a few seconds during the landing roll.
paunchy2 hours ago
I've seen references to this capability in reporting elsewhere. It's less useful in an aircraft than a car because you can gradually descend, reducing power proportionally as you're preparing to land. But I'm guessing this is part of where the claimed 30% improvement in efficiency comes from.
soperj2 hours ago
After they land, they usually sit around for a while. Not really super important to charge the battery on decent I wouldn't think. Would be interesting to get rid of the battery entirely (or reduce the size) and have a beefed up magsafe plug that was attached during lift off, and came unplugged once it was at cruising altitude.
xnx4 hours ago
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MeteorMarc2 hours ago
Nothing on recharging the battery in the landing phase, so room for improvement.
repiret2 hours ago
Not really much room. Unlike a car going down a hill, an airplane descending still wants thrust from the engines, just not as much as in cruise.
bell-cot2 hours ago
Not an aerospace engineer - but that sounds like a lot of extra cost/complexity/weight, for pretty minimal benefit.