Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SEaSiDE (SEaSiDE (Smart Electro-expulsive System for SAT Aircrafts De-Icing))

Teaser

Aviation has become an indispensable part of European transportation system, however, the system as it exists today is reaching full capacity and beginning to limit mobility. In addition, there is a demand for more people and goods to travel faster and farther, with fewer...

Summary

Aviation has become an indispensable part of European transportation system, however, the system as it exists today is reaching full capacity and beginning to limit mobility. In addition, there is a demand for more people and goods to travel faster and farther, with fewer delays” as defined by the H2050 target to complete door-to-door journey within 4 hours for 90% of travellers
One solution to increasing mobility in European transportation system is to exploit the existing small community airports across Europe and to improve safety, comfort and operability (especially in all weather operation - Icing) of the small aircraft community aircrafts.

Expand as much as possible the safe operation in all weather , and much more in icing conditions, of the small aircraft is one of the key point. Aircraft De-Icing System is one of the most power demanding onboard systems and for this reason small aircrafts are sometimes limited in icing operation.

This is much more true if we consider that small aircraft (SAT) area affected by limited space availability for system installation and that due to the low volume of this general aviation market sometimes is not easy to find the Systems supply chain ready to afford requirements coming from SAT OEMs at a relative low cost (there is a sort of market failure).

SEASIDE Project aims at solving the above issues by developing an innovative compact and low cost “Hybrid Electro-Expulsive De-Icing System” for the Piaggio P180 aircraft complying with CS23 Appendix C.
Objective of SEASIDE project is to analyze, design, develop, test in an Ice Wind Tunnel Test (IWT) and deliver to the Topic Manager a prototype of Hybrid (thermal and electro-expulsive) De-Icing system having the following expected targets:

A continuous Power demand for meter on wing span of 0.6KW.

In addition an objective of SEASIDE Project is to revitalize the European System Supply Chain dedicated to Ice protection System for SAT community by creating suitable low power ice protection system technology at a relative low cost. An economic evaluation will be done at the end of the project

Work performed

The project started with an intesive exchange with the Topic Manager in order to gather all the necessary requirements for the projetcs in terms of performance, safety, mechanical and electrical interfaces. As soon as requirements for the systems had been finalized with the Topic Manager and a Requirements document had been issued the activities continued with a preliminary icing impingemnt analysis on the wing section geometry provided by the Topic Manager, this activity has been performed by Protom. in parallel GKN did sme prelimiary testing activity on some material samples in order to understand the the best compromise of overlapping of the zones between a full electro-expulsive system and a full electrical system. GKN and Protom then worked toghter to arrange the concept of the Hybrid Electro-Expulisve and Electrical system and to finalize the architecture of the system. In this period Protom performed also some very preliminary safety analysis to justify the selected concept architecture. Milestone reached in this period has been the Icing Impingment analysis Milestone.

In terms of Project Management a great effort has been done in this period due to the decision of GKN to leave the project as already communicated and expalined to the Project Officer. Effort has been dedicated to find an alternative Partner that could continue project, the Partner has been found and will be formilized with an official Amendament to SEaSIDE GAP that will be open just after the closure of the first reporting period.

Task performed during this reporting period have been:

Task 1.1 Project Coordinatiom
Task 1.2 Dissemination Activities
Task 1.3 Comunication Activities
Task 1.4 Consortium Administrative and Financial activity.
Task 2.1.1 Icing Analysis (Impingement, Accretion, Residual Ice)
Task 2.1.2 Investigations into Materials and state of the art end effector functionality
Task 2.1.3 Sys. Requirements gathering & architecture definition (system & LE structure)
Task 2.2.1 Prelim LE End Effector System Element Designs (Electro thermal/Electro expulsive)
Task 2.2.2 Prelim Leading Edge Structure & Sys. Integration Preliminary Design
Task 2.2.4 Prelim Interfaces Definition (ICD) - Mechanical & Electrical
Task 2.2.6 Preliminary Safety Analysis (FMEA &PSSA)

Final results

With the ambition of researching, developing and demonstrating a suitable hybrid Ice Protection System to be used as reference for all small aircraft community SEASIDE project expected impacts are:

-A continuous Power demand per meter wing span of 0.6KW
-An Improvement in small aircraft operability in icing conditions, thus contributing to the European objective of including the SAT category in the integrated transport system by operating on commercial scheduled or non-scheduled flights within Europe. This contributes to H2050 flight path objectives of providing an accessible and affordable high speed mode of transport on European interregional network connection with low-intensity traffic and of providing a means of transport to complete door-to-door journey within 4 hours for 90% of travellers

In addition, this project will have an important impact on the revitalization of the European supply chain dedicated to SAT community, the technology developed under SEASIDE project is not yet available from a viable European supply chain.

The current State of the art in small aircraft (general aviation and lower categories) ice protection systems is based on pneumatic systems (both hot air and boots systems).These kind of systems have numerous kinds of drawbacks. Hot air pneumatic systems require hot and pressurised air to be bled from the Engine high/low pressure Engine compressor stages to be fed into the leading edge through piccolo tube technology. Bleeding air from the Engine compressor stage represents a loss of Engine performance and an increase of SFC, this is much more true for small aircraft normally equipped with low power Engines.

A traditional approach to cope with ice includes pneumatic deicing boots (usually used on propeller–driven aircraft).Pneumatic de-icing boots systems have been the standard for general aviation aircraft for many years. Their utility and reliability have been taken for granted by pilots and maintenance personnel alike.
Thermal anti–icing systems (to de-ice wing leading edges & propeller leading edges & engine air intakes) are also used on many general aviation aircraft, but, similar to hot air pneumatic solutions, these kind of systems require high levels of electrical power to protect aircraft surfaces from ice.

Gycol based fluid (usually used to protect wing surfaces & propeller leading edges) are used as well on some small aircraft. All these systems are highly complicated and need a lot of maintenance.

SEASIDE project aims at researching, developing and testing a suitable hybrid thermal-expulsive technology,which is reliable and low cost, suitable for small aircraft community in order to overcome the drawbacks of all the above described systems.
SEASIDE ambition is to provide European small aircraft community with a low power and low cost hybrid thermal-expulsive technology allowing small aircraft to cope with “all wheatear operation” and more specific Icing condition in a safe way.