Potential analysis for the optimization of the electrical network of large modern civil and future single aisle aircraft and examples of the network capacity utilisation

Many design objectives drive airplane development. One main driver is the reduction of aircraft weight, while retaining safety, function and performance. As extensive measurement campaigns have revealed, weight can be saved, as the electrical network exhibits low utilisation of the given network capacities. This is driven by requirements to be met, coincidence effects, and unexpectedly low system power consumptions for systems with complex load dependences. Hence, firstly, this paper will elaborate on the benefits, which can be achieved by an aircraft electrical network sizing on operational power for the commercial loads on large modern civil aircraft as well as on single aisle aircraft. Secondly, the introduction of two decentralised network architectures on single aisle aircraft will be considered and compared to todays centralised architecture.