As part of the Eco-Design ITD, the concept of all-electric aircraft (i.e. use of electricity as the only energy medium), that will remove the hydraulic fluid and use on-board power-by-wire, will offer significant benefits in terms of aircraft maintenance and disposal environmental impact, and yield new possibilities in terms of energy management.

An important milestone towards validating those innovative energy management architectures was reached on November 24th and 25th at Hispano-Suiza (Safran) in Colombes (France), as the preliminary design of the Electrical Test Bench was successfully reviewed.

Such a ground Electrical Test Bench (ETB) is fundamental to assess the feasibility of those new energy management architectures and their applicability on various configurations of future aircrafts, while reducing ground and flight tests.

Clean Sky Electrical Test Bench is based on an adapted version of Hispano-Suiza COPPER Bird® bench that offers a highly-versatile and representative test means where the complete electrical system is addressed, from electrical power generation to the loads.

The objectives of this Preliminary Design Review (PRD) were:

• To ensure that the ETB global design is agreed between the different ETB participants (members and partners);
• To confirm that the ETB design will meet the major objectives in terms of fidelity and test needs, including safety aspects;
• To ensure that the proposed ETB design and schedule will meet the global Clean Sky program expectations with an appropriate level of risk;
• To check the documentation status.

Reviewers from Dassault Aviation and Hispano-Suiza were appointed as representative of airframers and systems suppliers, respectively. After a deep review of the documentation presented, the PDR was approved and recommendations were issued in order to ensure compliance with future test campaign objectives. The Electrical Test Bench will support demonstrations with respect to future business jets, helicopters and regional aircraft.

"The excellent collaboration between Clean Sky members, partners and executive team was instrumental in reaching this important milestone for our Electrical Test Bench. I am more than confident that the next step, the Critical Design Review planned for March next year will also be a success" concluded Vittorio Selmin, CSJU Project Officer in charge of Eco-Design Integrated Technology Demonstrator. 

Participants to the project