URBAN AIR MOBILITY

An electric VTOL will generate noise. To be accepted by a community and be certified, its noise footprint will have to blend in the city background noise. This type of vehicle will be by design quieter than a helicopter since distributed electric propulsion has many advantages about noise. However, the city background noise is not that high compared to a conventional helicopter so these new vehicles will have to be very quiet. Therefore, broadband noise, interactional noise will have to be taken in consideration early in the design phase to be sure, the vehicle will be designed around one goal: blend into the city background noise. Additionally, during transitions[watch video], the vehicle will be prone the Blade Vortex Interactions (BVI) and in cities there is turbulence[watch video] ,and recirculations around buildings which will increase its noise footprint. With SIMULIA PowerFLOW, all these case scenarios can be simulated as early as the preliminary design phase.

Safety will be key to Urban Air Mobility. Electrical VTOL vehicles use several new technologies such as distributed electric propulsion, fly-by-wire, batteries and carbon fiber. These new technologies need to be understood at a single component level but also as a whole system. Risks such as bird strike [read blog], lighting strike [read blog], emergency landing, fly in city turbulence, battery thermal runaway [read blog], power shutdown, icing condition, can be mitigated thanks to simulation with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform that can be performed as early as on the preliminary design.

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Electric power is key to reducing aircraft noise and satisfying public demand for clean energy. Batteries are the most well-known source to power eVTOL vehicles, but the technology is a primary challenge, in terms of achieving sufficiently high specific power to support take-off and landing; high energy density to ensure target range and minimal weight to reduce energy consumption. To fully optimize battery and address concerns regarding thermal management, safety, reliability, and aging, the battery behavior across all scales and physics should be considered. Dassault Systèmes provides solutions for low and high fidelity system and physics simulations giving insight about diffusion, electric, chemical, mechanical and thermal behavior from molecular level through individual cell, modules, up to the integration of the battery system in the vehicle.

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The greatest operational barrier to deploying an eVTOL fleet in cities is a lack of sufficient locations to place landing spots. Vertiports should be easily accessible within city centers or downtown cores, which introduces significant challenges for city administrative authorities to allocate new spaces or adapt existing heliports in relatively shorter period. 3DEXPERIENCity® powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform offers game changing innovation for managing territorial complexity. By incorporating territorial data with analytical, modeling, simulation, and lifecycle management capabilities, it enables collaboration between all stakeholders involved in skyport infrastructure planning – including urban planning departments, regulatory agencies, transportation and utility network providers, architects, engineers, and contractors.

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