TOYON RESEARCH CORPORATION — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A17-002

Description

There is growing interest in the possibility of turboelectric propulsion for aircraft primarily due to the potential for significant fuel savings. This is enabled by the decoupling of the turbine engine and propulsor. The turbine’s shaft speed can then be optimized for power production while the shaft speed of the propulsor fan can be independently optimized for efficient thrust. Other advantages include the ease of electric power distribution, use of distributed propulsors, and the elimination of gearboxes as a wear item. Toyon proposes our Highly Power-Dense (HPD) electric motor technology as an innovative solution to the challenge of high power lightweight electric generators and motors which have the potential to supplant or augment conventional turbofan, turboshaft and turboprop propulsion systems for small UAV group 2 and 3 aircraft. Toyon’s HPD motor, is a significant improvement over the state of the art with power densities between 2-5 hp/lb. Toyon proposes to study the feasibility of our forced-convection cooled ironless Halbach array permanent magnet motor technology for propulsion systems demanding 20 hp at modest 3,200-3,500 RPM shaft speeds.