systemConnectionType

Directed connection from a <source> to a <target> within a system architecture, e.g. a fuel line from a tank to a pump or an electric connection from a bus bar to a consumer. Power flows along a connection in its direction, from the source to the target (see powerBreakdownsType).

Depending on the level of detail, source and target reference a system component or another part of the model such as a fuselage or a fuel tank, an element outside the model such as the ambient air, an ATA chapter or another system architecture (sourceTargetType). <controlDevices> make the connection alone switchable, e.g. a line that a valve can close (see systemControlDevicesType).

Connection type

<connectionType> classifies what the connection transmits: electric, pneumatic, hydraulic, mechanical, fluid, heat or data. fluid denotes the transport of a medium as a consumable or resource, e.g. fuel, water or oxygen. In contrast, hydraulic and pneumatic denote the transmission of power by a pressurized liquid or gas. heat denotes the transfer of thermal energy, e.g. a coolant loop that carries the waste heat of a fuel cell to a heat exchanger, or the heat that the exchanger rejects to the ambient air; the coolant is only the carrier here, so such a connection is heat and not fluid. Its power flows are given as <heatFlow> (see powerBreakdownsType).