Cable Impedance Calculations Employed in Designing Aerospace Electrical Power Systems

This paper presents design considerations in utilizing cable impedance calculations in the design of an aerospace electrical power system (EPS). Past wiring design guidelines featured a tabular set of data based on a single-point design reference. This results in a cable selection which adds unnecessary weight and under-utilized the wire’s performance ability when considering a vehicle’s design requirements. Present wiring design guidelines have lagged behind the growing movement to achieve an optimized wire selection. Understanding the shortfalls with past and present wiring design methods will improve future methods to comply with increasingly restrictive vehicle performance requirements. This paper will discuss two of the most important design requirements for future aerospace electrical power and distribution feeders, which are weight and thermal limits assigned to an EPS design.