A passive cooling design for an aircraft electromechanical actuator by using heat pipes

The more electric aircraft using the fly-by-wire technology is a developing trend for future aircrafts, in which the electromechanical actuator (EMA) is the key technique to realize the power-by-wire in the flight control actuation systems. The EMAs often suffer high heat generation during a short time, causing severe thermal problem, however, energy consumption and space for cooling systems are very limited on aircrafts. In this paper, a passive cooling design is proposed by transferring heat from the major sources of the EMA directly to fuel tanks by using heat pipes. The heat generation characteristics and the cooling performance of the EMA are experimentally investigated. The results show that the heat generation rates increase with the velocity and output force of the EMA, and efficient cooling for the EMA is performed by such a passive cooling device which decreases the temperature rise of the motor by 17.8% to 58.6% under different operation conditions. It is also found that the performance of this cooling device is majorly influenced by the coolant temperature and environmental temperature, while the impact of the coolant flow rate is not obvious. This work lays a foundation for the cooling design of the electromechanical actuators in an aircraft.

Automated summary

The increasing use of electric aircraft with fly-by-wire technology is a developing trend for future aircraft, where electromechanical actuators (EMAs) play a crucial role in power-by-wire systems. This paper proposes a passive cooling design using heat pipes to transfer heat from EMAs to fuel tanks, and experimentally investigates the heat generation characteristics and cooling performance of EMAs. The results demonstrate that the passive cooling device efficiently reduces the temperature rise of the motor under different operation conditions, laying a foundation for the cooling design of EMAs in aircraft.