Increasingly demanding requirements in the transportation industry for higher efficiency and reduced carbon footprint are leading to an ever increasing interest in electrically operated drives which offer significant benefits over their pneumatic or hydraulic counterparts. More electric aircraft technologies with fully electrical actuation and environmental conditioning systems are moving from topics of academic interest to commercial applications. Despite the progress in power electronics and electrical drives, significant advances in power density and reliability are still required before electrical technologies are fully accepted in the aircraft industry. The thermal management of losses generated in the power converters, with the associated requirements for heavy cooling systems, is proving to be the stumbling block for further improvements in power density. Ground-breaking advances in wide band-gap semiconductor materials are promising to deliver significant benefits to power conversion systems with unprecedented levels of power density thanks to considerably reduced losses and high temperature operation, making them ideal building blocks for aerospace power electronics. Leveraging on some of EU best expertise in device manufacture and packaging, components integration, thermal management, converters design, reliability analysis, control and condition monitoring, as well as aircraft power systems, the proposal will demonstrate significant advances of the state of the art in power converters for harsh environments. Innovative 3D device packaging based on planar interconnect technologies with double-sided integrated cooling, will be demonstrated for wide band-gap wire-bond free power semiconductor devices. These technological breakthroughs, coupled with novel methodologies for active thermal management, lifetime testing, health management and prognosis will contribute to unprecedented levels of power density, efficiency and reliability in aerospace application

Air traffic is projected to grow worldwide by 5% per year resulting in increasing fossil fuel consumption and emissions. Previous studies have shown that hybrid-electric distributed propulsion (DP) in civilian aircraft offers a route to achieve the massive reductions in fuel consumption and emission targeted by Flightpath 2050. These studies identify the necessity of potential superconducting solutions to achieve the required power densities and efficiencies. However, no suitable superconductive motor is available to realize DP in large aircraft and no prototypes have been constructed with this aim. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate the benefits of a new fully superconducting motor with a power density of 20kW/kg. In particular, the ASuMED project will: design an appropriate motor topology, develop a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) stator with an electric loading of >450kA/m, develop a rotor using HTS stacks operating like permanent magnets providing an average magnetic loading of >2.5 T, integrate a magnetization system into the stator area, implement a light, highly efficient cryostat for the motor combined with an integrated cryogenic cooling system and associated power converter. The above technologies will be demonstrated in a prototype with approximately 1 MW power at 10.000rpm and a thermal loss <0.1%, showing scalability to higher power values. In addition to the motor development, new active cooling designs will be investigated and novel numerical methods will be developed for 2D modelling of superconducting motors at the level of individual turns in the windings and for 3D modelling of motor components. Moreover, an innovative modular inverter topology with enhanced failure protection will be designed, to realize the highly dynamic and robust control of superconducting machines. After assembly of the overall motor, final tests will evaluate the technology´s benefits and allow its integration into designs for future aircraft.

For a competitive EU battery sector, the development of next-generation battery systems needs cost-efficient processes. MODALIS² will make a significant contribution to a cost-down for EV battery cells through an all-integrated development process based on numerical tools relying on extensive measurement data and material characterization all the way down to micro-structures. With the integrated modelling and simulation, MODALIS² will provide degrees of freedom for the cell and battery development processes that allows to address the following design challenges: i) faster development of batteries with higher energy density with new materials; ii) faster development of materials with higher optimized performances for higher-energy battery applications; iii) improved battery safety during transport and operation; iv) optimization of cyclability; v) lower development costs; and vi) better understanding of material interactions within the cell. The main achievement of MODALIS² is to develop and validate modelling & simulation tools for Gen 3b cells by aiming for higher capacities for the positive & negative electrodes; and for Gen 4b cells by enabling the use of solid electrolytes for improved safety and to facilitate the use of Li-M for the negative electrode. These new technologies are submitted to new specific mechanisms and phenomena (mechanical stresses on negative electrodes, volumetric expansion, solid electrolytic conduction) that are not considered by current modelling and simulation tools. MODALIS² will address the material characterization of next-generation (3b and 4b) Li-Ion cells in different physical domains, then expanding a carefully chosen set of models towards integrating new cell generations and implementing the models into a numerical simulations toolchain scalable to mass production. The modelling & simulation toolchain will allow faster time-to-market for next-gen cells.