Feasibility and Electromagnetic Design of Direct Drive Wheel Actuator for Green Taxiing

Tsarafidy Raminosoa
Electrical Machines Lab GE Global Research Niskayuna, New York, USA t.raminosoa@ieee.org

Tahar Hamiti, Michael Galea, Chris Gerada

Power Electronics, Machines and Control Research Group University of Nottingham Nottingham, UK mohand.hamiti@nottingham.ac.uk, eexmg1@nottingham.ac.uk, chris.gerada@nottingham.ac.uk have emerged including Delos Aerospace [3], the German Aerospace Center (DLR) [4], and Messier-Bugatti-Dowty [5]. In 2007, Delos Aerospace announced a total systems integration of a fully electric landing gear and maneuvering system. In this system, the old friction disk technology is replaced by axial flux disk motor/generators providing increased braking and maneuvering capability and eliminating the heat generated within friction based braking systems. In 2011, The German Aerospace Center (DLR) announced the Fuel Cell Power Electric Taxi fitted on the nose landing gear. DLR has reported that the fuel cellpowered electric nose wheel reduces the emissions produced by aircraft at airports by up to 27%, and noise levels during taxiing by up to 100% [4]. The DLR system features two motor units that fit inside the nose wheels rims. The inside of the rim has been redesigned to fit the motors and planetary gear [4]. In 2008, Safrans Group company Messier-Bugatti (Currently Messier-Bugatti-Dowty) has launched the Green Taxiing Project [5]. The work presented in this paper is part of this project within the frame of the Clean Sky Joint Technology Initiative [6]. Lately, this year (June 2011), Safran and Honeywell have announced a joint venture company to deliver an innovative new electric Green Taxiing system for new and existing aircrafts. They expect this system to be installed on new aircraft and retrofitted on to existing ones (Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 families) by 2016 [7]. So far, most of those existing electric powered wheel motors are fitted on the nose landing gear. Also, they all are equipped with gearboxes which bring some reliability issues due to the associated risk of mechanical jamming.

AbstractThis paper considers the feasibility of equipping the main landing gears with electric motors for the aircraft traction during the taxi phase. Those electromechanical wheel actuators make possible a Green Taxi operation by considerably reducing the on-ground carbon emission. Moreover, this will enable important fuel saving for short distance flights with high frequency of landing and take-off. In this work, direct drive wheel actuator is considered for energy efficiency and mechanical reliability. Two possible locations of the actuator are examined and the weights of the corresponding electric machines are compared. The most weight efficient location is then selected. A high torque density permanent magnet machine is then designed to fit in this envelope and to satisfy peak torque, weight and flux weakening capability requirements. The design procedure as well as several technologies adopted to maximize the torque density are presented.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The concept of using electric motor for the aircraft traction during taxi phase is a current technology challenge driven by the global effort for environmentally responsible air transportation. Such concept will help addressing environmental issues in the airport-area by significantly reducing carbon emission during the on-ground operation. In the recent years, the electric taxi concept has gained interest and known some initial developments in the aerospace industry. In 2005, WheelTug has successfully tested a proof of concept a motorized nose landing gear on a Boeing 767 aircraft [1]. In 2010, the WheelTug system was tested on a Boeing 737-800 under winter conditions at Prague airport. The WheelTug system is driven by a twin induction machines from Chorus Motors integrated within the nose wheel strut and featuring an integrated planetary gear [2]. They take the power from the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). Once the concept has been demonstrated, and its potential value to the industry proven, several competitors

978-1-4577-0541-0/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

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In this work, the electromechanical w wheel actuator is integrated on the main landing gears since they are ight. Direct drive supporting roughly 90% of the aircraft's wei technology is considered in order to achieve higher mechanical reliability, better overall efficie ency and reduced maintenance cost. operating at low In current aircrafts, the engines are o speed and thus very low efficiency du uring taxiing. In addition, there is an important use of the lan nding gear brakes during this phase, resulting in considerable waste of energy and very high brake heating. Implementi ing an electrical machine for the aircraft propulsion during th taxi phases has he been shown to enable important fuel s saving for short distance flights with high frequency of land ding and take-off. In addition, it reduces the stress on the lan nding gear brakes and helps increasing the brakes lifetime. Fu urthermore, using electric wheel actuator will lighten the airp infrastructure port by eliminating the need of any aircraft tracto and thus will ors, reduce the between-flight turnaround time by eliminating es the waiting time to attach and detach them. y This work evaluates, first, the feasibility within possible envelopes of direct drive permanent magne wheel actuator et for each wheel of the main landing gear. The it presents the en, design of a high torque density actuator within the most weight efficient envelope under the followin specifications: ng active weight less than 75kg; peak torque of 5000Nm and to stay within safe thermal conditions under a typical worst r case Torque and Speed duty cycles.

Figure 1. Possible locations of the Wheel Actuator

II.

ATION AND SELECTION OF MACHINE LOCA TECHNOLOGY

A. Machine Location tified to integrate Two possible locations have been ident the electromechanical wheel actuator on t main landing the d gear as illustrated in Fig. 1. They are referred to as the Front Envelope and Back Envelope. Preliminary design considerations have been performed for each envelope. Various stator and rotor technologies have been considered: single and double airgap, radial and H Halbach magnet arrangement. The results are summarized in Fig. 2 which clearly indicates that back envelope is by far the most weight r efficient. For that reason, the back env velope has been selected and the work has focused on the design improvement of the wheel actuator within th envelope. his

131.10kg Non Halbach Dual Rotor Design on the Front Envelope

94.93 kg Halbach Design on the Front H Envelope

78.36 kg Halbach Design on the Ba Envelope ack Figure 2. Preliminary design results and the corresponding masses for each envelope e.

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B. Electrical Machine Topology Selection Given the space envelope both radial and axial flux machines were initially considered. Machine topologies with single and double-sided airgaps were considered in view of reaching the peak torque capability which is predominantly limited by iron saturation. A double sided axial machine was optimally designed and modeled for the space envelope constraints as shown in Fig. 3. Axial machine designs however failed short of producing the peak torque requirements and were relatively heavy when compared to radial flux machines. Thus such topologies were eliminated from the candidate machine topologies. The peak torque achievable for the machine designed for the front envelope was only 3240Nm.

Outer Rotor configuration which has been shown to have higher torque density than the inner rotor counterpart [11]. Moreover, this configuration appears to suit better for wheel integration than an inner rotor one. Halbach magnet arrangement which increases the airgap flux density and consequently the torque capability [12], [13]. Furthermore, adopting a Halbach array produces a very sinusoidal air gap flux density. This will imply the highest ratio of the fundamental air gap flux (component which produces torque) to the total air gap flux which effects stator core saturation and hence the maximum peak torque achievable by the machine. High grade soft magnetic material such as Cobalt Iron which allows high magnetic loading and consequently improves the peak torque capability of the machine.

D. Copper fill factor enhancement Using open slot construction for the stator can help achieving high copper fill factor by pre-forming the coils. In addition, this can significantly ease the winding manufacturing [9]. Furthermore, it has been shown that using open slot design in concentrated winding PM machine provides very sinusoidal phase back EMF [14]. For those reasons, this technology has been adopted for the optimized design.

III.

GEOMETRICAL PARAMETER DESIGN PROCEDURE

Figure 3. Optimal axial-flux machine with a weight of 105kg failed to reach the peak torque constraint for the given machine envelope

C. Torque density enhancement measures As the wheel actuator will be carried while flying, the torque density is very important, and thus, has to be maximized in all possible ways. This has been achieved by adopting the following technologies. Single Layer concentrated winding which shows the highest fundamental winding factor among fractional-slot concentrated-windings [8], [9]; Unequal wound and unwound tooth widths which has been shown to further increase the fundamental winding factor of single layer concentrated windings [10];

Once the location and the technologies selected, the machine is designed for a fixed outer diameter of 600 mm in order to achieve a peak torque requirement of 5000 Nm with the minimum weight. The inner diameter has been fixed to 460mm so the machine can fit within the specified envelope. Both Silicon Iron and Cobalt Iron versions have been designed, but only the design of Cobalt Iron version is presented to illustrate the design procedure. The influence of pole number is first analyzed. The pole number has been varied from 30 to 70 for Single Layer winding technology based on 12 slots 10 poles or 12 slots 14 poles combinations having the same fundamental winding factor of 0.966. The average torque has been calculated under the following conditions: same axial length; same stator bore diameter and airgap; same magnet volume and same electrical loading. The influence of the number of poles is shown in Fig. 4. It appears that the 36 slots 42 poles combination gives the highest average torque.

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4600 4400 Average Torque [Nm] 4200 4000 3800 3600 3400 3200 3000 36 slots / 30 48 slots / 40 36 slots / 42 60 slots / 50 48 slots / 56 60 slots / 70 poles poles poles poles poles poles Slots/Poles

5600 5500 Average Torque (Nm) 5400 5300 5200 5100 5000 8 10 12 14 16 Magnet Height (mm) 18 20

Figure 4.

Influence of the number of poles.

Figure 5.

Influence of the magnet height on the average torque.

Average Torque (Nm)

The slot/pole combination being selected, the geometrical parameters are designed to maximize the average torque. The average torque is calculated under the peak torque condition which corresponds to a peak slot current density of 15Amps/mm2. Parametric analyses of the most influential geometrical parameters are performed. The design parameters are listed below. Magnet height Relative angular span of the radially magnetized magnet segment (Ratio main segment span / pole pitch ) Relative tooth width, first assuming equal wound and unwound tooth widths (Ratio tooth width / tooth pitch) Ratio unwound tooth width / wound tooth width

5700 5600 5500 5400 5300 5200 5100 5000 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 Relative Main Segement Span 0.85 0.9

Figure 6. Influence of the radially magnetised segment span on the average torque.

6000 5500 Average Torque [Nm] 5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 0.3 0.35 0.4 Relative Tooth Width 0.45 0.5

To complete those analyses in an efficient way, the scripting feature of Infolytica Magnet is used. This significantly eases the analysis of the effect of geometry parameters on the machine performance. In addition, the modelling strategy used takes advantage of the symmetry so as to minimize the computation time. Figures 5 to 8 show the influence of those parameters on the average torque. Those figures confirm that their manifest effect on the torque density. It can be seen that each of them has an optimal value maximizing the average torque. This optimal combination is summarized in Table 1. Figure 9 shows the flux density maps of the designed Cobalt Iron machine against the designed Silicon Iron counterpart at peak torque condition. The higher magnetic loading in the Cobalt Iron version is obvious. Figure 10 and 11 show the back EMF and torque of the designed Cobalt Iron machine. It exhibits a very sinusoidal back EMF and a very smooth torque.

Figure 7. Influence of the relative tooth width on the average torque.

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5600 5500 5400 5300 5200 5100 5000 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

6000 5000 Torque (Nm) 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 0 5 10 Position (deg) 15 20

Average Torque (Nm)

Unwound Tooth Width/Wound Tooth Width

Figure 8.

Influence of the ratio Unwound tooth width / Wound tooth width on the average torque. TABLE I. OPTIMIZED PARAMETERS 14 0.725 0.375 0.76

Figure 11. Torque waveform at peak torque condition for the optimized Cobalt Iron machine

IV.

THERMAL BEHAVIOUR

Magnet Height [mm] Relative Span of Radially Magnetized Magnet segment [pu] Relative tooth width [pu] Unwound tooth width/wound tooth width [pu]

Finally, in order to assess the flux weakening capability of the design, its maximum torque-speed curve is compared to the torque speed curve required by the specification. The maximum torque speed curve must cover the required one and the winding temperature have to stay within acceptable level under typical worst case torque and speed duty cycles. The exact thermal performance of the machine is difficult to estimate at this initial design stage as it is highly dependent on the machine integration within the wheel. The main thermal considerations will be the conductive heat transfer through the machine-wheel interface and any forced convective cooling provided. The machine will be in the vicinity of the brakes which reach very high temperatures, however a fan installed at the front aspect of the wheel is commonly used to provide cooling for the brakes. This forced airflow could be potentially ducted through the machine to control the temperature rise. Another way how to reduce the machine temperature is to increase the voltampere rating of the converter drive. Having the converter placed within a pressurized aircraft zone the additional weight penalty incurred is minimal compared to that of the electrical machine. Hence, increasing the volt-ampere limit will considerably reduce the copper losses in the fieldweakening region, thus ensuring the limiting temperatures are not reached. Fig.12 illustrates the winding temperature evolution for the worst case duty cycle requirements. The figure shows the temperature excursions for a conservative naturally cooled condition and for a forced ventilation condition. For this condition the converter was assumed to be able to provide: Imax=140 A and 324V. As it can be observed, forced convection is required if this converter rating is adopted. A second scenario was also considered; A naturally cooled machine (h = 10 W/mK) but with a high converter volt-ampere rating (Imax=225 A and 303 V). Fig. 13 shows the torque/speed characteristic achievable using this increased volt-ampere rating along with the characteristic

Silicon Iron Figure 9.

Cobalt Iron

Flux density map at peak torque condition

200 Phase Back EMF (V) at 74 rpm 150 100 50 0 -50 0 -100 -150 -200 Time (ms) 10 20 30 40

Figure 10. No load Phase back EMF at 74 rpm for the optimized Cobalt Iron machine

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required. The flux weakening region is clearly reduced together with the associated losses. This allows a significant temperature reduction as shown in fig.14. It can be observed that both options can be pursued. The implications of adopting a forced ventilation system still need to be evaluated at system level. Increasing the machine inductance can be counter-productive in terms of reaching the peak torque required due to an increased influence of saturation and the resulting weight penalty.
350 300 250 Temperature (C) 200 150 100 50 0 0 500 1000 1500 time (secs) 2000 2500 h=10,Lcas=10,Kfill=0.5 h=60,Lcas=10,Kfill=0.5

V.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

The work presented in this paper shows the feasibly of employing electric aircraft traction for taxiing purposes. The material and space constrains were respected and an initial thermal feasibility study was also performed. Further considerations which are needed to be accounted for prior to adopting a direct-drive technology are listed hereunder: A. Clutch mechanisim A clutch can potentially be employed between the machine and the wheel rim. If this is the case the machine requirements are less onerous at the expense of the additional complexity of having the clutch. If the machine is to be permanently coupled to the wheel the machine drive design must be fault tolerant and have minimal braking torque. The mechanical properties of the machine have also to be such to tolerate take-off and touch-down speeds. In additional to the above, the machine-drive unit will also have to deal with the large induced voltages at these speeds. Several options are possible to deal with such a scenario [15]. B. Adopting a geared actuator The alternative to a direct drive solution is to employ a geared mechanism. Whilst this is a viable option, the additional complexity of a gearbox is highly undesirable due to the increased component count and potential jamming faults. VI.
CONCLUSION

Figure 12. Effect of Convection Heat Transfer Coefficient on temperature rise Required

6000 5000 Torque [N.m] 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 0 50

Id=0 Flux weakening

100 Speed [RPM]

131 150

200

Figure 13. Torque speed characteristic when increasing the VA rating

300 250 Temperature [C] 200

This work has demonstrated the feasibility of implementing a direct drive wheel motor in the main landing gears of modern aircraft. Among the two possible envelopes, the back envelope has been shown to be the most weight efficient. All volumetric, weight, peak torque and flux weakening capability requirements are fully satisfied. Both the Silicon Iron and Cobalt Iron designs comply with the weight requirement with the Cobalt Iron design 10% lighter (65.39 kg vs. 72.25 kg). Furthermore, the best design achieves very sinusoidal back EMF and very smooth torque. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] WheelTug, WheelTug Tests December, 2010, http://www.wheeltug.gi/video.shtml Chorus Motors, http://www.chorusmotors.gi/aerospace.php Delos Aerospace, http://delosaerospace.com/Press_Room.html German Aerospace Center, Emission-free airports DLR develops a fuel cell-powered electric nose wheel for commercial aircraft, http://www.dlr.de/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-6225/10237_read28858/ Safran Messier-Bugatti-Dowty, Messier-Bugattis "Green Taxiing" solutions for Smarter Ground Operations, http://www.safranmbd.com/spip.php?article411&lang=en Clean Sky, http://www.cleansky.eu/

150 100 50 0 0 500 1000 Time [s] 1500 2000

[5] [6]

Figure 14. Effect of Volt/Ampere rating on temperature rise

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[10]

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