Fuel thermal management system of high performance fighter aircraft

For improving the character of high-performance fighter aircraft, fuel thermal management system (FTMS) was put forward. FTMS uses fuel as the main heat sink of environmental control system (ECS) and other systems which need to be cooled. Thermal management system of F-22 fighter aircraft is a typical applied case. Taking F-22 FTMS as an original version, the research method of thermal management system were analyzed. By using MATLAB simulation tools and S-function, static simulation and dynamic simulation modules of the system components were built up in order to get the simulation platform of FTMS. This platform could estimate the system performance and the fuel penalties. The simulation results show that FTMS can work better than the air cycle system (ACS) and satisfy the needs of high-performance fighter aircraft. FTMS will be one of the options for designing thermal management system of high-performance fighter aircraft.