Assessment of the Energy Efficiency of a Hybrid Turboprop Power Plant of a Regional Aircraft Considering the Mission Profile

With the tightening of international environmental requirements for civil aviation and the implementation of initiatives aimed at reducing specific greenhouse gas emissions, the transition to hybrid power plants for regional aircraft is becoming increasingly relevant. This paper proposes an approach to the integrated energy assessment of a parallel hybrid turboprop power plant at the conceptual design stage while taking the aircraft mission profile into account. The considered power plant includes a gas turbine engine, a reversible electric machine located on the same shaft as the reduction gearbox and propeller, an electrical energy storage system, and power electronics. The mission profile is represented as a sequence of segments—takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, and approach/landing. For each segment, energy balances are formulated and allowable operating ranges for the gas turbine and electric subsystems are defined. The key parameter is the hybridization factor, which determines the share of power transmitted to the propeller from the electric machine in different mission segments. The primary integrated performance metric is the energy consumption per ton-kilometer of transported payload. The analysis shows that for ranges up to 500 km, the hybrid configuration reduces specific energy consumption per ton-kilometer by up to 9%.