Zonal safety analysis in aircraft conceptual design: application to SAvE aircraft

The article presents an innovative zonal safety analysis method that can be applied to future products in conceptual design and discusses the results of the application of this technique to two different configurations of the all electric secondary power system (the conventional configuration and the hybrid fuel cells configuration) of a future medium altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, the system for unmanned aerial vehicle advanced alternative energy aircraft. Main advantages and criticalities of the application of the zonal safety analysis very early during the design process are addressed first, together with the description of the main characteristics of system for unmanned aerial vehicle advanced alternative energy aircraft. Then, the methodology, that has been used, is described in detail and the main results of the application of the zonal safety analysis to two significant aircraft bays are shown and discussed. Eventually, the main conclusions are drawn and the choice of the best configuration from the safety point of view is made.