Maturing DC protection methods for the more-electric aircraft

With the increasing electrification of modern aircraft designs, there is a growing dependence on the aircraft’s electrical power system for safe flight. Novel enabling technologies such as new converter topologies, DC power distribution and composite airframes however present challenging fault modes, which in turn require the application of new protection schemes and circuit breaking technologies. Hardware testing of such schemes is a critical stage of their maturation. This requires the use of dedicated protection rigs which capture key network elements influencing the system fault response and which can safely withstand full fault effects without risk of equipment damage. This paper presents such a protection rig being developed at the University of Strathclyde, designed to enable the evaluation and maturation of protection concepts and development of algorithms for compact DC aerospace power systems.