Electrothermal Model And Simulation Of An Electric Aircraft Battery System And Current State Assessment Of High-Performance Lithium Cathode Materials

Abstract

This work addresses the application of lithium batteries to eVTOLs. A detailed current state assessment of five lithium-based cathode materials is presented, with a particular emphasis on new emerging materials, their limitations and strategies to improve their performance, and a focus on specific energy, specific power, and safety. A battery system is then proposed according to the energy and power requirements of a flight mission for a short regional flight. A detailed electrothermal model of the proposed battery system is then implemented in the MATLAB® and Simulink® environment and simulated to assess its performance and to understand the complex evolution of electrical and thermal quantities of the battery cells during the different flight phases. The developed model is intended to be a flexible tool which can be used to approach the design of a battery and its thermal management system. Due to its reliance on look-up tables, its implementation can be performed using readily available cells datasheet without the need of a detailed cell characterization, allowing a fast comparison between different configurations and scenarios.