MIT aeroengineers are creating a 1-megawatt electrical motor that is a stepping stone toward electrifying commercial airliners. Pictured are some industrial concepts for hybrid-electric aircraft. Credit: @Airbus SAS 2023
Key points:
- Scientists designed and tested a 1-megawatt motor that could be key in electrifying larger aircraft.
- The individual components tested show the technology achieves the required performance; demonstrating the electric motor as a whole is next.
- The design could potentially be scaled up to multi-megawatt motors to power larger passenger planes.
A team of MIT engineers has created a 1-megawatt motor that could be a key stepping stone toward electrifying larger aircraft. The team designed and tested the major components of the motor, and shown through computations that the coupled components can work as a whole to generate 1 megawatt of power.
The motor’s main components include: a high-speed rotor, lined with an array of magnets with varying orientation of polarity; a compact low-loss stator that fits inside the rotor and contains an intricate array of copper windings; an advanced heat exchanger that keeps the components cool while transmitting the torque of the machine; and a distributed power electronics system, made from 30 custom-built circuit boards that precisely change the currents running through each of the stator’s copper windings, at high frequency.
As a whole system, the motor is designed so that the distributed circuit boards are close coupled with the electrical machine to minimize transmission loss and to allow effective air cooling through the integrated heat exchanger.
To reduce risk, the team built and tested each of the major components individually, and then showed that they can operate as designed and at conditions exceeding normal operational demands. The researchers now plan to assemble the first fully working electric motor, and start testing it in the fall.
Once the team can demonstrate the electric motor as a whole, they say the design could power regional aircraft and could also be a companion to conventional jet engines, to enable hybrid-electric propulsion systems. The researchers also envision that multiple 1-megawatt motors could power multiple fans distributed along the wing on future aircraft configurations.
Looking ahead, the foundations of the 1-megawatt electrical machine design could potentially be scaled up to multi-megawatt motors in order to power larger passenger planes.
As designed, the MIT electric motor and power electronics are each about the size of a checked suitcase weighing less than an adult passenger.
“Heavy stuff doesn’t go on airplanes, so we had to come up with a compact, lightweight, and powerful architecture,” said Zoltan Spakovszky, professor in aeronautics and the Director of the Gas Turbine Laboratory at MIT, who leads the project.