Electric power supply system for an aircraft, aircraft and airport power supply system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9484749-B2
Application number	US-201314050734-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 10, 2013
Priority date	Oct 15, 2012
Publication date	Nov 1, 2016
Grant date	Nov 1, 2016

Abstract

The present invention relates to an electric power supply system for an aircraft having a transformer-less HVDC architecture, the system including: at least one multiphase engine generator in a star configuration which provides a multiphase alternating (AC) voltage; a converting circuit for converting the multiphase AC voltage into a corresponding direct (DC) voltage for supplying at least one aircraft load; an electric power supply interface for connection with a standardized GPU plug of an external GPU, the electric power supply interface comprising a supply voltage output terminal coupled to a self-contained power source for providing a low voltage control signal for driving a GPU internal switching circuit wherein the power source is decoupled from the AC voltage and DC voltage. The present invention further relates to an aircraft and an airport power supply system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electric power supply system for an aircraft having a transformer-less HVDC architecture, the system comprising:
at least one multiphase engine generator in a star configuration which provides a multiphase alternating (AC) voltage;
a converting circuit for converting the multiphase AC voltage into a corresponding direct (DC) voltage for supplying at least one aircraft electrical load;
an electric power supply interface for connection with a standardized ground power unit (GPU) plug of an external GPU, the electric power supply interface comprising a supply voltage output terminal coupled to a self-contained power source for providing a low voltage control signal for driving a GPU internal switching circuit, wherein the power source is decoupled from the AC voltage and DC voltage, and a neutral conductor input terminal which corresponds to a neutral conductor output terminal of the GPU; and
a monitoring circuit connected between the neutral conductor input terminal and the aircraft body for monitoring whether a neutral conductor of the GPU plug is isolated from a body of the aircraft.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one multiphase engine generator is designed such that a magnitude and phase of the multiphase AC voltage produced by the engine generator corresponds to at least one AC voltage provided by a standardized external GPU.

3. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the star configuration of the at least one engine generator has an isolated neutral point.

4. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the neutral conductor input terminal is configured such that, in a connected state, the neutral conductor output terminal of the GPU plug and/or the neutral conductor input terminal is/are isolated from the aircraft body.

5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the self-contained power source is configured to produce a low voltage control signal which is suited to switch a switching element of the GPU internal switching circuit.

6. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the self-contained power source is configured to provide a potential free control signal.

7. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising at least one control circuit for controlling operation of the electric power supply system via the engine generators and the GPUs.

8. The system according to claim 7 , wherein the control circuit is configured to electrically interrupt a connection between the electric power supply system and at least one GPU and/or an AC side busbar connection of the electric power supply system if the monitoring circuit detects that the neutral conductor output terminal of the GPU plug is not electrically isolated from the aircraft body.

9. The system according to claim 1 , wherein one phase of an output of the converting circuit and/or at least one electrical load is connected to a ground reference, in particular to the aircraft body.

10. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the converting circuit is a multiphase rectifying circuit, in particular a multiphase bridge rectifier.

11. The system according to claim 10 , further comprising a switching circuit to switch electrical loads to the DC voltage and/or to decouple the multiphase rectifying circuit from the AC voltage and/or to disconnect an AC busbar connection.

12. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising at least one on-board auxiliary energy supply device, in particular an auxiliary power unit (APU) and/or a fuel cell, configured to provide electric power if aircraft engines are off.

13. An aircraft, in particular wide-body aircraft, comprising:
first and second aircraft engines;
first and second pairs of engine generators coupled to the first and second aircraft engines, respectively; and
an electric power supply system according to claim 1 .

14. An airport power supply system comprising:
an aircraft according to claim 13 and
at least one standardized GPU which is configured to provide an auxiliary supply energy when the engine generators of the aircraft are not operating, each of the GPUs having at least one standardized GPU power supply interface, wherein the GPU power supply interface is configured to couple with the electric power supply interface of the aircraft via corresponding conductors.

Assignees

• Airbus Operations Gmbh

Inventors

• Brombach Johannes
• Schulz Detlef

Classifications

• B64D2221/00

  Electric power distribution systems onboard aircraft · CPC title

• H02J4/00 Primary

  Circuit arrangements for mains or distribution networks not specified as AC or DC; Circuit arrangements for mains or distribution networks combining AC and DC sections or sub-networks (arrangements using intermediate DC-AC-DC conversion H02J1/002; arrangements using high-voltage DC [HVDC] links H02J3/36) · CPC title

• H02J2105/32

  for aircrafts · CPC title

• B64F1/352

  Mobile units · CPC title

• Y02T50/82

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic