Minimal Cut Sets-Based Reliability Evaluation of the More Electric Aircraft Power System

The More Electric Aircraft (MEA) stands for the direction of aviation development in the new era, and the reliability of power systems on the MEA has attracted widespread attention. Based on the characteristics of MEA power systems, an equivalent method of electrical topology structure is presented in this article, and evaluation method is proposed which shows the reliability of the overall system with the reliability of specific nodes. Firstly, electrical topology structure of a MEA power system is converted into a network node diagram according to the proposed equivalent method. Then, the minimal path sets of specific nodes are obtained by the adjacent matrix algorithm, and the low-order minimal cut sets of disjointed are obtained. After that, the actual failure rate of components is converted to node failure rate, and the reliability of the overall system is evaluated by operational reliability indexes of specific nodes. Finally, taking the MEA A380 as an example, this paper compares and analyzes the reliability of AC loads, DC loads, and key loads to verify the validity and feasibility of the proposed evaluation method. This evaluation system can predict the weak points existing in the MEA power system, as well as providing theoretical support for maintenance schedule.