Abstract
Electrified aircraft are a promising solution to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint across general and commercial aviation sectors. However, many current conceptual design studies assume fixed propulsion architectures and operations, limiting design flexibility and potentially leading to sub-optimal outcomes. To address this, the Future Aircraft Sizing Tool (FAST), an open-source, Matlab-based tool, was developed as a propulsion system-agnostic tool for early-phase conceptual design. FAST facilitates rapid and comprehensive aircraft sizing and performance evaluation, utilizing an extensive database of over 450 historical aircraft. It combines data-driven models with physics-based models where historical data is insufficient, particularly for new electrification technologies. This capability enables early-stage design space exploration to rigorously assess a wide range of propulsion architectures, energy sources, and operational strategies for novel aircraft configurations. This paper presents the key features of FAST, including workflows for aircraft sizing and analysis. The paper also presents a case study involving a commercial freighter, demonstrating FAST’s ability to perform design space exploration and early-phase trade studies.
Paul Mokotoff
PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant
Paul Mokotoff is a graduate student research assistant in the IDEAS Lab at the University of Michigan.
Maxfield Arnson
PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant
Maxfield Arnson is a graduate student research assistant in the IDEAS Lab at the University of Michigan.
Yi-Chih "Arenas" Wang
PhD student and Graduate Research Assistant
Arenas Wang is a PhD student and graduate research assistant in the IDEAS Lab at the University of Michigan.
