D23.10 - Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (sCO₂)-Cooled Current Source Inverter-based Integrated Motor Drive for MW-Scale Electric Aviation Applications

Thursday, March 20, 2025

11:30 AM – 1:30 PM ET

Location: Level One, Hall A3

Technical Dialogue Presenter(s)

Hang Dai, PhD (he/him/his)

GE Aerospace Research

Presentation Paper

Co-Author(s)

JY

John Yagielski

GE Aerospace Research
Thomas M. Jahns, PhD

University of Wisconsin-Madison
KH

Kum-Kang Huh

GE Aerospace Research
LW

Libing Wang

GE Aerospace Research
BS

Bulent Sarlioglu

WEMPEC University of Wisconsin-Madison
VR

Vandana Rallabandi

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
TS

Tarak Saha

GE Aerospace Research
WF

Wenda Feng (he/him/his)

Florida State University

Wide-bandgap enabled current-source inverter (CSI) is a promising power converter topology that has cleaner output voltage waveform, higher fault tolerance, and higher temperature operation capability than conventional voltage-source inverters (VSI). This paper presents a WBG-enabled CSI for a 2-MW integrated motor drive (IMD) for electric aviation application. The CSI system consists of two series-connected CSI that forms as a unit, and three such units are connected in parallel to drive a specially designed surface permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) that has six individual groups of three-phase windings. Furthermore, the CSI’s dc-link inductor and power modules are cooled with supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2), and also cools the integrated PMSM’s stator windings. The proposed CSI-based MW-scale IMD achieves an estimated 97.3% efficiency and 18.1 kW/kg power density. Its high-power density and promising fault-tolerance characteristics make it a competitive solution for MW-scale electric aviation applications.