MIT News June 8, 2023
To electrify larger, heavier jets, such as commercial airliners, MIT engineers are creating a 1-megawatt motor. The team designed and tested the major components of the motor. Through detailed computations they showed that the coupled components can work to generate one megawatt of power, at a weight and size competitive with current small aeroengines. As designed, the MIT electric motor and power electronics are each about the size of a checked suitcase weighing less than an adult passenger. The motor’s main components are a high-speed rotor, lined with an array of magnets with varying orientation of polarity; a compact low-loss stator that fits inside the rotor and contains an intricate array of copper windings; an advanced heat exchanger; and a distributed power electronics system, made from custom-built circuit boards. The motor could turn the electrical energy into mechanical work to power a plane’s propellers; it could be paired with a traditional turbofan jet engine to run as a hybrid propulsion system. The researchers plan to assemble the first fully working electric motor and start testing it in the fall. The foundations of the one-megawatt electrical machine design could potentially be scaled up to multi-megawatt motors, to power larger passenger planes. They will present their work at a special session of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics – Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium (EATS) at the Aviation conference in June… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ