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Lightweight Aeronautical 18650 Cylindrical Cells (LACS) Blue Dolphin (UK) Ltd is working with WMG and Innovate UK funding, to develop aeronautical batteries with a 15% mass saving
About
Lightweight Aeronautical 18650 Cylindrical Cells (LACS) Blue Dolphin (UK) Ltd is working collaboratively with the University of Warwick on technology that will enable the aviation industry to adopt electrical propulsion solutions for future aircraft programmes ensuring that the industry will continue to grow and prosper whilst minimising its environmental impact. For the foreseeable future the most realistic way for aircraft to become significantly less polluting is through the adoption of full electric and hybrid power plants (gas turbine - electric). This will in turn create a strong demand for high performance, lightweight battery cells to enable the creation of on-board energy storage devices that perform safely and economically. The Lightweight Aeronautical 18650 Cylindrical Cell (LACS) project is working to provide the aeronautical industry with a battery cell of greater specific energy and power density than any currently available.
Key Benefits
This project will allow for the development of a UK aerospace battery supply chain capability through the design and build of lightweight battery cells. Central to the development of an electrical aerospace-specific power pack is the required reduction in mass of all the major component classes. In any battery pack assembly, the cells make up around 80 to 85% of the total mass. Therefore a significant reduction in the mass of the cells will have a major impact on the overall assembly mass.
Applications
General Aviation GA aircraft manufacturers are leading the way in commercialising electrical propulsion. According to Bye Aerospace who is developing electric training aircraft, ‘a compelling need for new pilots… with an estimated 790,000 needed over the next 20 years. According to industry sources, 80% of new student pilots drop out of training. The #1 objection is cost. The answer: 20,000 new flight trainers are needed. The clean, all-electric Sun Flyer trainer is ideal as it dramatically reduces the ops-cost for flight training while replacing a small, obsolete training fleet of 10,000 conventional aircraft that averages nearly 50 years-old’. Electric Vehicle Take Off and Landing (EVTOL) Urban and inter-city air travel providing fast, efficient and congestion free travel has the potential market demand for such systems, With cities that lack efficient ground transport systems, journeys that today can take hours by road could be shortened to minutes by air. Airbus believes that if such vehicles can solve the noise, operating cost and safety issues associated with conventional helicopters they can see a market demand in the order of approximately 100 times the size of their current annual helicopter production rates, equivalent to 40-50,000 aircraft. Regional The first large scale aircraft application for electrical propulsion is likely to be in short range regional aircraft providing point to point connections. There are current programmes looking into utilising both hybrid and all electric propulsion to deliver benefits around short take-off and landing capability, reduced noise and local emissions and reduced maintenance.