Achieving NASA’s aggressive fuel burn and emission reduction for N+3 aircraft will require hybrid electric propulsion system in which electric motors driven by either power generated from turbine or energy storage system will power the fan for propulsion.  The hybrid electric propulsion system required 3-4X increase in power density of electric motors.  One of the major challenges for achieving high power density in non-cryogenic electric motors is thermal management, particularly poor thermal conduction properties and high temperature limits of the electrical insulating layer around electric coils.  For hybrid electric propulsion system, where the motor drives the fan, large amounts of power has to be transferred within the aircraft structure, which would benefit from high voltage transmission cables due to significantly reduced losses at high voltage. High voltage transmission cables will require electrically insulating layer that is stable at high voltages, while at the same time has the ability to remove the heat generated in electrical cables. Our research effort is to develop a polymer – boron nitride nanotube (polymer-BNNT) composite material that is electrically insulating, but thermally conductive. Boron nitride nanotube is highly thermally conductive; with thermal conductivity comparable to that of CNT (thermal conductivity of BNNT measured ~ 350 W/mK).  At the same time BNNT is an electrically insulator material and is one of the best dielectric materials (band gap of ~5 eV).The feasibility of fabricating polymer-BNNT composites with desired thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity properties will be discussed.<br/><br/><br/><br/>

Insulator materials for gas-electric motors

251st National Meeting (2016)

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