i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8

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Feasibility analysis of a new thermal insulation

concept of cryogenic fuel tanks for hydrogen fuel
cell powered commercial aircraft

Linus Kameni Monkam a,c, Arne Graf von Schweinitz a,c, Jens Friedrichs b,c,
Xin Gao a,c,*
a
Institute of Energy and Process Systems Engineering (InES), Technische Universita€ t Braunschweig, Germany
b
Institut für Flugantriebe und Str€omungsmaschinen (IFAS), Technische Universita
€ t Braunschweig, Germany
c
Cluster of Excellence SE2A-Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Aviation, Braunschweig, Germany

highlights

A novel cryogenic liquid H2 tank design is proposed for passenger aircrafts.

The new tank design can easily realize a volumetric saving of about 33%.

The new design is intrinsically safer with the tank submerged in nitrogen.

The new design shows enhanced robustness & environment adaptability.

The new design is tens of percent more efficient using passive heating.

article info abstract

Article history: Of cryogenic liquid hydrogen tanks for future airliners, their volumetric and gravimetric
Received 5 July 2022 efficiencies, their robustness and their environmental adaptability are all strengthened via
Accepted 7 July 2022 a novel thermal insulation concept proposed in this work.
Available online 23 August 2022 A conventional cryogenic tank is insulated either purely by a layer/layers of Poly-
urethane (PU) foam or by a vacuum-based multilayer insulation (MLI). In the new concept,
Keywords: an extra layer is inserted into the PU foam. The intermediate layer can be filled with liquid
Cryogenic hydrogen nitrogen while on the ground or with ambient air during flight.
Onboard storage By this new design, analysis shows an approximate 33% volumetric saving compared to
Heat insulation PU insulation. Furthermore, a 6-fold amount of passive heat input during cruise flight is
Thermal design easily achieved compared to the rest two concepts. This showcases an increased robust-
Aviation ness against possible failure of the tank's active heating system, and the potential for
significant parasitic power loss reduction.
© 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

€ t Braunschweig, Germany.
* Corresponding author. Institute of Energy and Process Systems Engineering (InES), Technische Universita
E-mail address: xin.gao@tu-braunschweig.de (X. Gao).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.07.069
0360-3199/© 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
31396 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8
Introduction
Even though the share of global CO2 emissions by commercial
aviation is currently only about 3%, it is the fastest-growing
passenger transport sector. Taking into account a “business
as usual” projection, the sector will grow by 3e4% annually;
considering a propulsion efficiency improvement of 2% per
year, it will result in a share of already 24% of the global CO2
emission by 2050 [2]. Besides, commercial flights operate at
high cruising altitudes, which amplifies the climate-damaging
effects of in-flight emissions, e.g., NOx [3]. All in all, the civil
aviation sector plays thus a significant role in global climate
change [2,4].
One way to radically reduce fossil fuel consumption and
emissions is to convert conventional propulsion systems into
hydrogen-based ones [4,5]. A hydrogen-combustion jet engine
and a fuel-cell-electric-motor driven propeller are common
hydrogen-based propulsion concepts subject to current
research. In this context, the aviation climate impact could be
reduced by 50e75% through hydrogen combustion and even
by 75e90% through hydrogen fuel cell propulsion. In both
cases, the onboard storage of hydrogen becomes a necessity,
whereby all the currently existing storage technologies can
roughly be classified as in pure form, in chemically bound
form, and storage by surface adsorption [1].
Generally speaking, all other types of storage except for the
pure form as liquid or gas are primarily still on a low tech-
nology readiness level (TRL). Especially the conditions for
loading and unloading prove to be still challenging in most
cases [1,6]. As well, the resulting gravimetric energy densities
cannot compete with that of storage in pure liquid form,
which is why this storage method is considered the most
feasible for commercial aircraft applications among all others
[5]. Pioneering literature by Brewer et al. suggested that
especially larger, longer-range aircraft, could benefit with
shorter runways and up to 25% less energy to fulfil their flight
missions when shifting to liquid hydrogen (LH2) [7]. In a later
analysis it was concluded that a reduction of aircraft gross
weight by 10% for short-range aircraft and 20% for medium-
range aircraft could be achieved when using LH2 [8]. A more
recent study by Airbus concluded that a conversion from jet
fuel to LH2 would reduce the payload capacity of an aircraft
due to the higher tank system structural weight and fuel
consumption increase from a larger fuselage volume [9].
Nevertheless, all authors agree that not only LH2 can be
economically viable in the future, the ecological benefits in
comparison to hydrocarbon-based fuels speak strongly in
favor for hydrogen technology.
All advantages of LH2 as aviation fuel aside, the storage is
technically challenging. Gaseous hydrogen (GH2) needs to be
cooled down to a level of approximately 253  C for liquifici-
ation. The unavoidable heat input from the environment
warms the LH2 up until it starts to boil, from which moment
on any further heat input leads to evaporation (boil-off)
causing a drastic pressure increase inside the tank [10]. Once
the internal pressure of the tank exceeds a certain level, pvent ,
GH2 must be vented to protect the tank structure from me-
chanical stress. Therefore, LH2 tanks are always equipped
with a pressure relief system and a safety valve [6]. This
venting process leads to a loss of hydrogen which is referred to
as boil-off loss. The period between refueling and the first
forced venting is stated as the dormancy time of the tank [11].
A well-established insulation concept is vacuum-based,
consisting of two nested tanks with an evacuated space in-
between to minimize heat transfer by conduction, as shown
in Fig. 1. The concept contains multilayer insulation (MLI) as
well, also known as super insulation, with several layers of
aluminum foil alternating with glass fiber mats minimizing
heat transfer by radiation [6]. This concept is pursued mainly
in stationary applications. However, Airbus is currently
investigating this storage concept for its usability in aircraft
applications [12]. Even though this insulation concept reduces
the heat input to a minimum, the required vacuum brings
several disadvantages for aircraft applications [13]. Besides
expensive technology to maintain the temperature and pres-
sure inside the vacuum, a vacuum poses a safety risk. In the
event of a vacuum rupture, the insulation performance would
deteriorate so dramatically that the stored hydrogen has to be
drained within minutes at a rate an order of magnitude higher
than the cruise fuel consumption [14,15]. Furthermore, heavy
tank walls are required for the vacuum. This adds up to a
higher system weight, which the aircraft performance and
airline's direct operating costs are sensitive to.
It emerges that since the requirements in dormancy time,
tank weight and volume as well as safety restrictions differ
distinctly from other use cases, aviation LH2 tanks cannot be
directly adapted from space, automotive, or stationary sys-
tems [16]. Instead, they are subject to current research and not
yet available on the free market [14]. For aircraft applications,
foam in particular is proposed as an insulation material in
many recent studies. Verstraete [17] compared different foam
insulations feasible for aircraft applications. He concluded
that the weight disadvantage of the thicker insulation using
pure foam compared to the vacuum-based MLI can be
compensated by the fact that foam insulations only need one
tank wall, which is thinner because no vacuum has to be
maintained. Winnefeld et al. chose a foam based insulation
(Rohacell) for their LH2 tank design due to its competitiveness
in terms of weight and safety [5]. In this paper, a pure foam-
based insulation concept and a vacuum-based MLI are used
as state-of-the-art benchmarks. Rohacell foam leads to
heavier tanks compared to Polyurethane (PU) foam, which is
why PU is chosen in this study [14].
To exclude fuel loss and possible safety risks due to the GH2
boil-off, a dormancy time that equals to an aircraft's
maximum holding time on ground should be used for setting
the insulation thickness [4]. This results in the thickest and
heaviest insulation for the minimal ambient heat input into
the stored LH2. However, during cruise flight, this passive heat
input is welcome in hydrogen-fuel-cell propulsion concepts to
reduce the amount of active heating needed, since LH2 has to
be converted to GH2 for the fuel cell system. Concerning the
cruise flight, the tank insulation in the benchmark cases
is therefore always over-dimensioned. This oversizing in-
troduces the possibility of a tank weight and volume reduc-
tion, as well as a potential for electrical efficiency
improvement, if the required active heating and thus the
parasitic power loss can be reduced. Last but not least, the
oversized insulation poses a hazard potential since, in the
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8
Fig. 1 e Liquid hydrogen tank of the company Linde plc [1].
event of an active heating failure, the minimized passive heat
input may not sustain the rate of GH2 for essential thrust
generation.
Addressing the above potential savings and safety con-
cerns, the use of a double wall chamber filled with a cryogenic
liquid layer (CLL) of liquid nitrogen (LN2) is proposed here. The
CLL could reduce the driving temperature difference of the
passive heat input during the holding time on ground and in
turn reduce the required insulation thickness. During cruise
flight, the chamber can be flooded with ambient air continu-
ously washing round the LH2 compartment. Such change in
the insulation property suggests an increased passive heat
input during cruise flight compared to the benchmark LH2
storage systems.
The CLL is therefore a novel thermal insulation concept
that has the potential to reduce the weight and volume of the
insulation system. Furthermore, an increased robustness can
be expected in minimizing the hazard potential in the event of
an active heating system failure during cruise flight. In this
study, these expected performance improvements from the
integration of a CLL are investigated. Along the study, a one-
dimensional steady-state computational analytical model is
developed to predict the heat transfer and net tank weight and
volume for the novel concept referring to the benchmark
cases.
Model description
The thermal insulation layers for an LH2 tank in this work are
placed on the outer side of the tank wall rather than on the
inner, following Brewer, Verstraete and others [5,17,18]. To
layout the insulation, the worst-case design point combines a
minimum GH2 removal out of the tank with a maximum
ambient temperature for a maximum holding time, leading to
the thickest necessary insulation. This operating point is
present when the refueled aircraft has to wait on ground
before take-off under hot day conditions [4].
The maximum allowed heat flux into the LH2 is a function of
the allowed pressure rise during a given holding time and
therefore the same for each concept. In the case of the novel
concept, however, a significantly thinner foam insulation layer
31397
can be selected to achieve this heat flux due to the drastically
reduced driving temperature difference. The gaseous nitrogen
(GN2) that was evaporated due to the heat input from the
environment is discharged directly to the environment via a
venting valve to keep the temperature inside of the double-wall
chamber constant at the low level of around 80 K of saturated
LN2. For the assessment of the tank's performance during
cruise, it is assumed that the LN2 compartment of the novel
insulation concept can be flooded with ambient air. This could
technically be achieved by draining any remaining nitrogen
through normally open type valves and displacing the nitrogen
by ambient air. Yet the technical implementation of this gas
exchange will be examined in future research.
In the first step, the total hydrogen demand is estimated for
the cruise shaft power of the respective reference aircraft and
the selected cruise duration. Based on the holding time
requirement before takeoff, the tank is then dimensioned for
the three insulation concepts. Here, the outermost diameter of
the tank is pre-specified to the fuselage diameter of the
respective reference aircraft to take into account that the
area-to-volume ratio (AVR) and thus the performance of the
tank improves for larger aircraft [19]. To validate the analytical
model, the model predictions of one benchmark case are
compared with the literature [14].
Mathematical formulation
Assumptions
For a comparative investigation of the described tank con-
cepts, the needed insulation thickness and thus structural
weight is estimated for each concept in the first step. Sec-
ondly, based on the tank insulation thicknesses computed,
the passive heat input from the environment into the LH2
during cruise flight is calculated for a comparison of the
remaining propulsion power in the event of the active heating
system failure. The following assumptions are made.
(a) the heat transfer is computed one-dimensional and
steady-state for the hot day conditions on the airport
ground (Tamb ¼ 40  C, pamb ¼ 1:013 barÞ [20]; the ambient
31398 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8
pressure and temperature during cruise flight are
calculated based on the equations for the international
standard atmosphere (ISA) as a function of the flight
altitude [21].
(b) saturated conditions are applied inside the tank with
thermal stratification neglected [5]; i.e., the gaseous and
liquid phases are in thermodynamical equilibrium, and
a mean temperature TH2 and TN2 corresponding the
saturation temperature is applied.
(c) the LH2 is assumed to be fully converted to para-
hydrogen during the liquefication process. Pure
para-hydrogen and neglection of any endothermic
para-to-ortho conversion during holding will allow for
more conservative results [5].
(d) during the holding period on ground, no boil-off is
allowed and the tank is in a fully fueled state with a
volumetric gas buffer margin of 3% applied at venting
[5,17].
(e) the structural tank weight is composed of the tank wall,
tank fairings, steam block layers, and the insulation;
other system components such as spacers, heat ex-
changers, or valves are neglected.
(f) to account for heat input through heat conduction via
components such as spacers or valves, a margin of 30%
is added to the calculated heat input [17].
(g) only a fuel-cell-based propulsion concept is considered.
(h) the term holding time is used synonymously with
dormancy time; during the holding time on ground no
hydrogen extraction is assumed.
Tank geometry
The tank geometry is illustrated in Fig. 2. It is defined by the
tank's inner volume, its inside and outside surface, and the
shell thickness, where the shell consists of the tank wall, the
insulation (two insulations, in case of the novel concept), the
vapor barrier, and the fairing. The tank form is approximated
as a cylindrical tube with flat caps, rather than elliptical or
hemispherical caps to provide more conservative results.
Because the tank's surface-to-volume ratio is the highest with
the flat caps compared to the other two cap shapes.
Tank inner volume
The inner volume of the tank Vi;tank is a function of the total
fuel mass mLH2 to be stored and the mean density rH2 of the
stored saturated liquid-vapor mixture. The mean density in-
side the tank depends thereby on the volumetric liquid fill
fraction b of the tank, the density of the saturated liquid phase
rl and the density of the saturated gaseous phase rg [22]:

1
x ð1  xÞ
rH2 ¼ þ (1)
rg rf
  
1
rf b 20,KS,vN þ Dp
x¼ 1 þ
rg 1  b
Hereby, x describes the mean fluid quality of the saturated
liquid-vapor mixture inside the tank. Due to the thermody-
namic properties of saturated LH2, rg will increase with
increased tank fill pressure. The volumetrically dominating rf ,
on the other hand, behaves in a contrary manner. This is
shown in Fig. 3 and explains, for higher tank fill pressures, the
mean density of the liquid-vapor-mixture decreases, leading
to a larger inner tank volume for the same hydrogen mass to
be stored.
A free selection of b after refueling is not possible, instead,
it results from the chosen combination of pfill and pvent . At the
moment when pvent is reached inside the tank, a 3% gas buffer
should be present so that sufficient GH2 can be discharged to
limit the pressure inside the tank accordingly [8]. Now, as the
saturated LH2 expands with increasing internal pressure, the
gas buffer decreases with rising tank pressure. Thus, the
higher pvent is chosen, the lower the initial b should be
selected, which increases the tank size for a given hydrogen
mass. The initial b is obtained by determining rH2 of the
saturated liquid-gas mixture when the venting pressure is
reached. Therefore, the filling level is set to bvent ¼ 0.97 at an
internal pressure of pvent . The resulting rH2 must be the same
after filling, since no hydrogen is discharged until the first
venting. The initial b can then be determined from equations
(1) and (2), taking pfill into account to calculate rg and rl .
The calculation of the needed inside volume of the tank is
straightforward:
mH2
Vi;tank ¼ (3)
rH2
Tank diameter and surface
The tanks inside diameter di;tank depends on the tank shape
and its inner volume, which follows:
 2
di;tank
Vi;tank ¼ p, ,ltank (4)
2
The calculation of the tank's inside surface Ai;tank is then:
Ai;tank ¼ Ai;cyl þ 2,Ai;cap (5)
Ai;cyl ¼ p,di;tank ,ltank (6)
 2
di;tank
Ai;cap ¼ p, (7)
2
The outside diameter do;tank is obtained by adding the wall
thicknesses dwall;i , the insulation thickness dins , the thickness of
the tank fairing dfair , and respectively, the thickness of the
outer wall dwall;o for the MLI concept or the width of the double
wall ddw to the inside radius for the new concept. The tank
outside surface Ao;tank is obtained with the help of do;tank .
The dwall;i is calculated for all three concepts based on the
approach for a cylindrical pressure vessel with an over-
pressure at the inside as defined in the AD2000 guidelines [23]
and explained in detail in Ref. [24]:
di;tank ,Dp
dwall;i ¼ þ c1 þ c2 (8)
(2)
The design overpressure is given as Dp in bar. Hereby, the
maximum overpressure during a flight mission has to be
taken into account, which appears when the inside tank
pressure reaches pvent at cruising altitude.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8
Fig. 2 e Schematical description of the pure foam (left) and novel (right) insulation concept.
Fig. 3 e Density of the liquid and gaseous phase of
saturated hydrogen as a function of pressure [22].
The factor K
takes into account the most feasible failure
S
scenario by setting relation to a safety factor S and the
material-dependent strength parameter K (Mpa). The weld
factor vN ( 1) depends on the frequency of testing the weld
connections of the tank and is smaller the less frequently it is
tested. For the present case, vN ¼ 1 is applied. The quantities c1
and c2 are wall thickness surcharges which both have the unit
mm. c1 is intended to account for manufacturing tolerances; c2
compensates for corrosion and use-related abrasion.
Following the AD2000 guidelines, c1 ¼ 0 mm and c2 ¼ 1 mm (in
case the resulting dwall is smaller than 3 mm) are applied.
The MLI concept necessitates an outer tank wall that can
withstand the vacuum on the inside. For the calculation of the
required wall thickness dwall;o , ISO 20421-1 [25] is used. In its
31399
Annex H, equations for the design of components under the
influence of external pressure are provided, which are used to
design the outer tank wall against plastic deformation:
20K dwall;o 1
pe ¼ , ,  (9)
Sp do;tank d
1:5u 10:2 o;tank do;tank
lb
1þ 100,dwall;o
dwall;o must be selected such that the permissible design
external pressure pe corresponds to the ambient pressure pamb .
The buckling length lb [m] describes the maximum length of
the outer wall that is not strengthened by a reinforcement ring
do;tank
against buckling where lb
¼ 5 is set. The stiffening rings,
which are to stiffen the outer wall at a distance lb from each
other, are neglected. For K, the fracture limit of the wall ma-
terial is applied. The out-of-roundness u [%] describes the
extent to which the cylinder may deviate from its round shape
due to manufacturing reasons. Here, u ¼ 1% is selected for
slightly more conservative results. Finally, Sp is a safety factor
against plastic deformation, for which Sp ¼ 1.4 needs to be
applied.
Tank thermal design
Allowed heat flux
To layout the foam insulation layer thickness dins , the
maximum allowed passive heat flux Q_ LH2;max between envi-
ronment and LH2 during the holding time has to be computed.
The pressure increase inside the tank due to hydrogen boil-
off can be described by the homogenous approach [22], as
thermal stratification inside the tank is neglected so that
liquid and gaseous phases share the same temperature TLH2 .
31400 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8

Thereby, the pressure increase is related to the heat input Q_ in rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi !3

gðrsat;l  rsat;v Þ csat;l ðT1;2  TLN2 Þ
and hydrogen removal m_ H2;out from the tank: Q_ in ¼ msat;l Dhvap ,A1;2 (15)
s Cnb Dhvap Prnsat;l
dp F
¼ ½DQ_  m_ out , Dhv , ðx þ r* Þ (10) Here, msat;l , rsat;l , csat;l and Prsat;l are the viscosity, density,
dt Vi
specific heat capacity, and Prandtl number of the saturated

  1 liquid; rsat;v is the density of the saturated vapor; Dhvap is the
vu
F ¼ rLH2 (11) latent heat of vaporization; g describes the gravity; and s is the
vp r
liquid-vapor surface tension. The constant Cnb is dimension-
Here Vi ¼ Vi;tank and the total heat flux into the LH2 is less and experimentally determined for the given surface-
described by DQ_ ¼ Q_ in  Q_ out with Q_ out ¼ 0 W. The density ratio fluid combination. The dimensionless exponent n is set to
r* is defined by r* ¼ rg = ðrg  rl Þ. Dhv is the enthalpy of 1.7 for other fluids than water and Cnb ¼ 0:013 is a valid
vaporization and is defined as Dhv ¼ hg  hl at the saturated assumption if the coefficient has not been determined for the
surface-fluid combination, as in the present case [26].
temperature TH2 ¼ TLH2 .
Rcond;1 refers to the heat transfer resistance of the outer
To calculate the maximum allowable heat flux Q_ LH2;max
insulation layer with the heat conduction resistance of the
dp
based on equation (10), the pressure rise dt is given as input. tank fairing neglected to allow for more conservative results:
Since steady state is considered, a constant pressure increase 
is applied with pvent to be reached at the end of the holding 1 ln rroi
period: Rcond;1 ¼ , (16)
2,p,ri ,ltank lfoam
dp Dp pvent  pfill Here the thermal conductivity of the insulation material
z ¼ (12)
dt Dt tholding lfoam is looked up to the temperature of the foam's surface T1;1 .
The outermost radius is known as ro ¼ ri þ dins;1 , of which dins;1
Insulation thickness and LN2 mass is the thickness of the outer insulation layer.
Once the design heat flux Q_ LH2;max is known for the steady- During the aircraft holding time, free convection is applied
state, the needed insulation thicknesses can be determined on the outermost surface of the tank to calculate aconv;1;1 using
for each insulation concept respectively. the Nusselt-number correlations for a vertical flat plate [26].
Radiation heat transfer needs to be considered for this surface
Novel insulation concept as well [17]. For this, an equivalent convective heat transfer
The LN2 temperature inside the double-wall is kept constant coefficient arad;1;1 is determined according to Refs. [27,28] and
at the average temperature of the liquid-gas mixture Tdw ¼ added to aconv;1;1 for the total heat transfer coefficient a1;1 and
TLN2 , via consistently venting the vaporized GN2 through a then the heat transfer resistance Rconv;1;1 :
pressure relief valve. The valve's threshold pressure level is
set marginally above the filling pressure of the double wall: a1;1 ¼ aconv;1;1 þ arad;1;1 (17)
pdw ¼ pfill;N2 ¼ const. Applying equation (10), the demand for 
LN2 to be stored within the double-wall chamber is obtained arad;1;1 ¼ sε T21;1 þ T2amb ,ðT1;1 þ Tamb Þ (18)
by integrating the resulting GN2 mass flow over the holding
Here, s is the Boltzmann constant, and ε is the emittance of
time:
the tank fairing ε ¼ 0.09 [27].
Dtholding
Z For the second insulation layer closer to the tank wall, to
mLN2 ¼ m_ N2;out dt (13) compute its thickness dins;2 , the layer is discretized into
0 nfoamLayer ¼ 40 [ 17 ] sublayers of equal thickness for the foam's
Hereby, dp ¼ 0 is applied with the considered double-wall thermal conductivity versus temperature. Subsequently, the
dt
chamber volume Vdw : thickness dj of the sublayers is increased iteratively and the
h i temperature profile over the insulation layers is developed
Vdw ¼ pltank ðri þ dwall þ ddw Þ2  ðri þ dwall Þ2 þ 2pri 2 ddw (14) based on the fixed heat flux Q_ LH2;max until Tins;nfoamLayer zT2;2 . The
temperatures at the outside and inside insulation surfaces are
As Q_ out ¼ Q_ LH2;max is known, it remains Q_ in to be determined.
determined for the nucleate boiling regions with equation (15)
For Q_ in , an equation system has to be solved iteratively with
for the respective saturated fluids while neglecting the heat
TLN2 and Tamb given as boundary conditions: conduction resistance of the thin tank walls: Tins;0 ¼ T2;1 ,
0 1 Tins;nfoamLayer ¼ T2;2 . The total insulation layer thickness then
0 1 T 0 1
1 1 0 0 B N2 C Rboil;N2
@ AB T1;2 C @ AQ_ in follows: dins ¼ dj ,nfoamLayer . For the caps, the resulting insu-
0¼ 0 1 1 0 @  R
T1;1 A
cond;1
0 0 1 1 Rconv;1;1 lation thickness is different from the cylindrical part of the
Tamb
tank and is iterated separately based on the steady-state heat
Rboil;N2 refers to the heat transfer resistance from the heated conduction equations in Ref. [29] for a flat wall and a cylinder.
outside wall T1;2 into the LN2 stored. Instead of approximating
this heat transfer resistance, T1;2 is computed by applying the The pure foam insulation concept
correlation for the nucleate boiling region of a saturated fluid For the benchmark case of pure foam insulation, the equation
found by Rohsenow [26]: system to determine the total mean insulation thickness dins
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8 31401

for the known heat flux Q_ LH2;max under boundary conditions Hereby, the total fuel mass to be stored is related to the
Tamb and TLH2 , follows: total system mass, where the tank mass mtank results,
depending on the concept investigated, from adding the tank
0 1
0 1 T wall mass mwall , the insulation mass mins , the vapor barrier
1 1 0 0 0 / / 0 B H2 C
B0 1 1 0 / / / 0C B T2 C mass mvapBarr (0.225 kg/m2 [5]) and the mass of the tank fairing
B CB Tins;i C
B0 0 1 1 0 / / 0C B C mfairing (1.304 kg/m2 [5]).
B CB Tins;iþ1 C
0¼B
B« 0 0 1 1 1 1 « CB
CB «
C
C Besides the system weight, the total space taken by the
B« « « 0 1 1 0 « CB C
B CB Tins;N C tank is also of interest in aircraft applications [34], for which
@0 0 « 1 1 1 1 0 AB C
@ T1 A reason a dimensionless volumetric tank efficiency is intro-
0 0 0 / / 0 1 1
Tamb duced as:
0 1
Rboil;LH2
B Rcond;2 C Vi;tank
B C hV;tank ¼ (22)
B Rins;i C Vo;tank
B C
B Rins;iþ1 C
B CQ_ LH2;max (19)
B« C Here, Vi;tank is related to the resulting tank outermost vol-
B C
B Rins;N C ume Vo;tank after the thermal insulation is applied.
B C
@ Rcond;1 A An additional aspect of the tank system's performance
Rconv;1 examined here is the passive heat flux into the stored
Consistent with the assumptions applied for the novel hydrogen during cruise flight without applying additional
concept, the heat resistances of the tank walls Rcond;1 and Rcond;2 heating to the tank. The magnitude of this passive heat flux in
are neglected and the inside wall temperature T2 is computed comparison to the required heat flux for hydrogen evapora-
for the nucleate boiling region of the saturated LH2 following tion at the design point plays a vital role in describing the
equation (15). The insulation layer is divided into 40 sublayers robustness of the insulation concept against a failure of the
again to compute the total thickness. : active heating system. To compare the ability of the different
tank concepts in providing GH2 with no active heating present,
The MLI concept a third dimensionless index is introduced representing the
For the thermal design of the MLI, a correlation is used, which fraction of passive heat input during cruise flight to the
allows the modeling of different MLIs by adjusting certain required heat input for LH2 vaporization:
parameters, with gaseous nitrogen (GN2) applied as interstitial
gas [17,30e32]. Q_ passive
hQ;cr
_ ¼ (23)
Q_ cruise
ðTH þ TC Þ,ðTH  TC Þ H  TC
T4:67 4:67
P n n
q¼ C1 ,NCt 2 ,
2,ðN þ 1Þ
þC3 ,ε
N
þCg , THg TCg
N Here, Q_ passive refers to the steady-state passive heat input
(20) out of the environment during the cruise flight, while Q_ cruise
Q_
stands for the total heat flux needed to vaporize the LH2 ac-
Here, q ¼ ALH2;max
is the heat flux density through the MLI, C1 , C2
o;tank cording to the power demand.
and C3 are empirically determined coefficients for the respec-
Q_ cruise results from the hydrogen flow requirement at a given
tive combination of spacer and insulation blanket material. Cg is
shaft power and the vaporization enthalpy of hydrogen, taking
a coefficient depending on the interstitial gas in the insulation
into account the gravimetric energy density of hydrogen
(1:46,104 for GN2); ng is an exponent depending on the inter-
(hgrav;H2 ¼ 33; 3 kWh=kg ¼ 11988,104 J=kg), the fuel cell stack ef-
stitial gas (0.53 for GN2). P is the vacuum pressure (13 mPa) and ε
ficiency hFC and a safety margin SFC;purge for fuel losses due to
the emissivity of the radiation shields (0.043 for aluminized
anode purge. Here, a typical efficiency of hFC ¼ 0:5 and a con-
shields). Double aluminized mylar (DAM) is applied as radiation
servative margin of SFC;purge ¼ 1:1 are applied:
shield and Dacron as spacer material as this material combi-
nation is one of the most promising [17], which leads to C1 ¼ Pshaft;cruise
m_ GH2 ¼ ,SFC;purge (24)
8:95, 108 , C2 ¼ 2:56 and C3 ¼ 5:39, 1010 . TH and TC are the hgrav;H2 ,hFC
surface temperatures of the hot and cold MLI surface, with TH
calculated for free convection and TC calculated for the nucleate
Q_ cruise ¼ m_ GH2 ,Dhvap;H2 (25)
boiling region, neglecting the heat conduction resistance of the
tank walls consistent with the preceding approaches. hQ;cr
_ provides an indicator of the adaptability of the tank sys-
Applying a layer density Nt of 20 [layer/cm] [33], equation tem to cruise conditions and potential savings in heating
(20) is used to determine the total amount N of MLI layers. The power for hydrogen evaporation, as well as general robustness
insulation thickness finally is: dins ¼ NNt . of the tank system against an active heating system failure.

Tank performance indeces Novel and pure foam insulation concepts

For both the novel and the pure foam insulation concepts,
To compare different tank designs in terms of their weight, Q_ passive is computed by solving the equation system (26) with
Verstraete [17] introduced a dimensionless weight-related Tamb now corresponding to the ambient temperature at the
tank efficiency which is applied here as well: given cruise altitude. For the pure foam insulation concept,
mH2 free convection between the tank outermost wall and the
hm;tank ¼ (21)
mtank þ mH2 environment is assumed during cruise flight. For the novel
31402 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8

insulation concept, on the other hand, the LN2 compartment predetermined. The calculation of TH and TC remains
now is submerged within the ambient air which forcibly unchanged.
washes round the tank walls. Therefore, here it is assumed
that the ambient air temperature is imprinted onto the outer
wall of the LN2 compartment and heat flux is only calculated Results and discussion
between the air-filled double wall and the LH2 compartment.
As the heat flux and the temperature profile are both un- Model validation and a case study
known, two nested iterations become necessary:
0 1 To validate the computational model, the results for the pure
0 1 T
1 1 0 0 0 / / 0 B H2 C foam insulation are compared with those from Verstraete
B0 1 1 0 / / / 0C B T2 C et al. [14]. For this purpose, the case is referred to of a single
B CB Tins;i C
B0 0 1 1 0 / / 0 CB C
B CB Tins;iþ1 C tank for a regional aircraft transporting 32 passengers, with a
0¼B
B « 0 0 1 1 1 1 « CB
CB «
C
C
B« CB C design range of 2100 km, a flight altitude of about 9144 m, and
B « « 0 1 1 0 « CB Tins;N C
@0 0 « 1 1 1 1 A
0 @B C a cruise Mach number of 0.65. An LH2 requirement of about
T1 A
0 0 0 / / 0 1 1 1150 kg with a filling pressure of 1.2 bara, and a venting
Tamb
0 1 pressure of 1.82 bara are selected. The fuselage diameter is
Rboil;LH2
B Rcond;2 C 3 m. Finally, a holding time of 1 h is applied.
B C Aluminum is chosen as wall material [13,17]. As the
B Rins;i C
B C
B Rins;iþ1 C aluminum alloy 6061 shows an excellent hydrogen embrit-
B CQ_ passive (26)
B« C tlement resistance [35]. It is applied as inner tank wall mate-
B C
B Rins;N C
B C rial for the following analysis. However, the exact aluminum
@ Rcond;1 A
alloy applied in the reference case is not disclosed by Ver-
Rconv;1
straete et al. [14].
The implementation of the nested iterations is demon- Table 1 validates the calculated results with those from
strated for the cylindrical tank part in Fig. 4. In an outer loop, Verstraete et al. More conservative overall design assump-
the passive heat flux is increased, while in an inner loop, the tions, divergent approaches in determining the wall thick-
temperature profile, for the given insulation layer thickness ness, and possible different tank wall materials used may
and insulation layer amount, is determined. The iteration explain the absolute deviations in the results.
stops as soon as the resulting temperature profile corresponds Although implementing the novel insulation concept onto
to the boundary conditions. Tamb and pamb now correspond to this reference case enables an increase in volumetric effi-
the air temperature and pressure in the given cruise altitude h: ciency of about 11.38%, the gravimetric efficiency deteriorates
slightly by 3.19%. The reason for this is that the new concept
h½m
Tamb ¼ T0  6:5 (27) requires more layers of e.g., fairing. The resulting additional
1000
weight cannot be compensated by the insulation savings.
 5:2561 For the determination of hQ;cr_ , the maximum continuous
h
pamb ¼ p0 1  0:0065 (28) shaft power of an ATR42-200 is applied, which covers the
T0
comparison case well with a passenger capacity between 40
MLI concept and 60. This aircraft is powered by two PW120 engines with a
For the MLI concept, the correlation given in equation (20) is total maximum continuous power of Pshaft ¼ 2,1268
used again. However now q is determined with N and Nt kW ¼ 2536 kW [36,37]. In the event of an active heating system
failure, the aircraft could still have around 17.89% of the shaft
power left, compared to only 4.09% available under the
benchmark foam insulation concept. This indicating a greatly
improved robustness against failure of the active heating sys-
tem. This also promises a notable saving of heating power and
a generally enhanced adaptability of the tank system towards
differing ambient conditions.

Parametric study of venting pressure and holding time

In the following, the impact of the venting pressure and the

holding time on the performance of the insulation concepts is
investigated for two reference aircraft. The mission fuel is
estimated in a simplified manner exclusively via the duration
of the cruise section, with 5% reserve fuel [38] being added:

mH2 ¼ m_ GH2 ,Dtcruise ,1:05 (29)

Fig. 4 e Pseudo code of the heat flux determination for the
novel and pure foam insulation concept during cruise Table 2 compares the two investigated reference cases. The
flight, given a foam thickness. filling pressure is set to 1.2 bara for both tanks [5]. The tank's
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8
Table 1 e Model validation and results comparison for a total LH2 mass of 1500 kg and a holding time of 1 h.
outermost diameter do;tank;max is derived from the respective
aircraft fuselage. A cruise duration of 2 h is applied for both
aircraft, leading to the range specification assuming the
maximum cruise speed.
First, the results for the DO 228-200 are discussed. Fig. 5a)e
d) give the gravimetric and volumetric tank efficiencies over
the design holding time at four different venting pressures.
Missing values in the diagrams indicate that the minimum
achievable outermost diameter of the tank exceeded the
available space within the fuselage. At this point, we declare
further comparative investigation of tank performances un-
tenable, due to the no longer uniform geometric boundary
conditions.
The novel and pure foam insulations display the general
trend that tank efficiency decreases with increased demand in
holding time. This is expected due to the need for more
insulation material. For the MLI concept on the other hand,
the hm;tank and hV;tank remain almost constant with increased
holding time. This can be explained by the fact that the need
for MLI layers is so small that the weight of the MLI layers is
almost negligible compared to the weight of the MLI tank
walls.
An elevation of pvent from 1.448 bara to 2 bara leads to a
deterioration of hm;tank by up to 10% for both the new and MLI
concept. This suggests that the weight reduction due to
insulation material savings resulting from the higher allow-
able pressure rise inside the tank is smaller than the weight
gain due to the necessarily thicker tank walls.
For the pure foam insulation, however, it can be seen that
at a design holding time of 30 min a venting pressure around
1.8 bara results in a gravimetric improvement of almost 60%
compared to a venting pressure of 1.448 bara. The weight
saved in insulation material, therefore, outweighs the thicker
tank wall.
Table 2 e Reference case data.
Reference case Pshaft;cruise [kW] mH2 [kg]
DO 228-200 533 (2 x) 147.9
[36,41]
DHC-8-401 3781 (2 x) 1049
[39,40]
31403
In general, the MLI performs the best in terms of hm;tank
indicating that the insulation foam savings due to the MLI
concept outweigh the extra weight due to the additional tank
outer layers of the novel concept. hV;tank generally rises along
the higher pvent selected, indicating that the growth in tank
volume due to the lower initial fill level bfill is outweighed by
the reduction in insulation thickness. Since in the case of the
new insulation concept less insulation material is installed,
the insulation savings potential is smaller compared to the
pure foam insulation. This is taken to an extreme for the MLI
concept, since here, due to the extremely low thermal con-
ductivity of the super insulation, there is almost no insulation
material left that can be saved by increasing the venting
pressure. Therefore, even if the wall thicknesses increase
slightly due to a venting pressure increase, hV;tank remains
almost constant over the venting pressure range considered
for the MLI concept.
For short holding times of 20 min, all concepts perform
strongest and similarly regarding hm;tank at all venting pres-
sures with the MLI concept performing slightly better. At
longer holding times, however, the hV;tank of the foam insu-
lation rapidly deteriorates and drops below the efficiency of
the new concept. This indicates that the growth in insulation
demand greatly extends the tank space requirement and
especially for low venting pressures, the available space
within the fuselage is exceeded at holding times beyond
30 min. Only at higher venting pressures, at the cost of heavier
tanks, a tank insulated with pure foam could be fitted inside
the aircraft. Still, at the highest examined value for pvent , the
geometrical limitation is exceeded at the max. examined
holding time of 120 min.
For the novel concept, the critical tank diameter is never
surpassed. While hV;tank deteriorates for the new concept as
well, it does not drop below 0.53. It can be stated that the
do;tank;max [m] Dtcruise Range [km] Alt. PAX
[min] [km] []
1.5 120 630 3.048 19
2.7 120 1334 6.096 70
31404 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8
Fig. 5 e Gravimetric and volumetric tank efficiencies of the investigated tank insulation concepts as a function of the design
holding time by retrofitting a DO 228-200 with a total LH2 mass of 147.9 kg to be stored and an outside tank diameter of
1.5 m
volumetric efficiency of the MLI is on average 102% higher
than that of the pure foam insulation and 31% higher than
that of the new concept. This is due to the fact that the MLI
minimizes the heat input to such an extent that the necessary
MLI layer thickness always remains below that of the refer-
ence concepts. Furthermore, apart from the fact that a second
thicker outer wall is necessary to maintain the vacuum, the
resulting weight increase can be compensated by the weight
reduction due to the reduced insulation material compared to
the reference concepts.
It can be summarized that the novel concept is first of all
superior to the pure foam insulation in terms of volumetric
efficiency, which can be explained by the capability of LN2 to
absorb heat through evaporation and by the fact that the
thermal conductivity of the PU foam is significantly reduced
by cooling it down with the help of LN2. However, the addi-
tional mass from the double-wall LN2 chamber dampens the
novel concept's performance in terms of hm;tank for short
holding times. Nevertheless, the highest hm;tank is achievable
with the MLI, since for small tanks the weight saving in
insulation material outperforms the weight increase due to
the necessary thicker tank wall.
In Fig. 6a)ed), the hQ;cr
_ is plotted over the holding time
under the same four venting pressures. The passive heat input
of the MLI and pure foam insulation during the cruise flight is
approximately equal, since either design cannot adapt to
cruise conditions.
The passive heat input of the novel concept is much larger
than with the benchmark concepts at all considered holding
times, on average resulting in a 413% higher heat input during
cruise flight. A max. hQ;cr
_ of 36.4% is reached by the novel
concept at a venting pressure of 2 bara and 20 min of design
holding time. It is the combination that leads to the minimum
amount of insulation material for all concepts and therefore
results in the largest expected Q_ passive during cruise. These
results indicate for the new concept a dramatically improved
robustness against a failure of the active LH2 heating system,
as well as a significantly lowered active heating power
demand.
Fig. 7a)ed) show the gravimetric and volumetric tank effi-
ciencies for the DHC-8-401 reference aircraft. Comparing with
the results of the DO 228-200, it shows that the already dis-
cussed effects of increased venting pressure apply to the DHC-
8-401 as well. However, a general improvement is noticed.
The overall improvement in weight- and volume-related
performance parameters and the fact that the tank can now
be integrated into the fuselage in almost all cases investigated,
suggests that the amount of thermal insulation now grows
slower with increasing holding time than for the smaller
reference aircraft. This makes sense since the area-to-volume
ratio (AVR) of the cylindrical tank decreases both with
increasing LH2 mass to be stored and with increasing tank
diameter, as illustrated by Fig. 8a) and b). On the one hand,
this minimizes the heat input and therefore the relative
amount of thermal insulation needed. Furthermore, the
impact on the tank weight of all components associated with
the tank surface (tank wall, thermal insulation) declines. Due
to the generally decreasing relative insulation amount with
declining AVR, the savings potential through the new concept
drops for the larger reference airplane.
When designed for minimum tank weight, which now
makes a venting pressure of 1.6 bara appealing, the pure foam
concept is gravimetrically superior to the new one up to
holding times of 1 h, whereby it is volumetrically out-
performed by both the new and MLI concepts regardless of the
holding time.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8 31405

Fig. 6 e Dimensionless passive heat input during cruise flight for the investigated tank insulation concepts as a function of
the design holding time by retrofitting a DO 228-200 with a total LH2 mass of 147.9 kg to be stored and an outside tank
diameter of 1.5 m

Fig. 7 e Gravimetric and volumetric tank efficiencies of the investigated tank insulation concepts as a function of the design
holding time by retrofitting a DHC-8-401 with a total LH2 mass of 1049 kg to be stored and an outside tank diameter of 2.7 m

However, when designed for minimum space requirement,
for which the venting pressure should be raised to 2 bara, the
new concept is superior to the reference concept starting from
holding times of half an hour.
In terms of weight, the MLI now performs worst, while
volumetrically it still beats both other concepts. Although the
MLI allows a minimum insulation layer thickness due to its
extremely low thermal conductivity, the gravimetric savings
potential due to a minimization of the already thin insulation
becomes negligible. This is underlined by hm;tank remaining
almost constant over all holding times investigated.
Fig. 9a)ed) plot the hQ;cr
_ over the holding time, of all insu-
lation concepts for DHC-8-401. Again, it is considerably higher
for the new insulation concept with an average increase of
423%. However, the total passive heat input is reduced due to
the decreased AVR.
Since for future applications the overnight stop in the
refilled state can also represent a dimensioning operating
31406 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8

Table 3 e Overnight stop investigation for the DHC-8-401

(design holding time of 12 h).
hm;tank hV;tank hQ;cr
_
[%] [%] [%]
pvent ¼ 1.448 [bara] MLI 63.5 96.3 0.12
Pure PU foam e e e
Novel concept 52.3 35.6 1.38

concept still results in an up to factor 10 greater passive heat

input compared to the MLI.

Conclusion

Fig. 8 e Generic illustration of the influence of the stored
fluid mass and the tank diameter on the AVR of a
cylindrical tank. Density, mass and diameter are simplified
to 1 for the purpose of plotting when not located on the x-
axis.
point for LH2 tanks [42], Table 3 compares exemplarily the
resulting performance parameters with a holding time of 12 h
applied. Since pure foam insulation is no longer feasible for
the DO 228-200 for such operation, the investigation is limited
to the DHC-8-401.
Nevertheless, a design for an overnight stop under hot-day
conditions leads to impractical foam thicknesses in the case of
pure foam insulation. The new insulation concept can with-
stand an overnight stop, but it cannot compete with an MLI in
terms of weight and volume due to the greatly increased
insulation requirements. In cruise flight, however, the new
In this study, a novel LH2 storage concept for aircraft has been
proposed that uses an additional cryogenic nitrogen tank
layer to improve the tank's insulation performance and
adaptability against different environmental conditions. The
novel concept has been compared to conventional foam
insulation and vacuum-based MLI in terms of weight, volume
and environmental adaptability for two reference aircraft.
The novel concept's capability of limiting the tank volume
by limiting the heat flux into the LH2 through nitrogen evap-
oration becomes apparent. Volumetric savings compared to a
pure foam insulation increase, with decreasing LH2 payload.
For small tanks, the volumetric savings compared to the pure
foam insulation and increased adaptability and robustness
come at the price of slight tank weight increases due to
necessary additional wall. Regarding tank volume, the MLI
concept performs by far the best of all the concepts investi-
gated, since it allows a minimum insulation thickness. Still,
for larger tanks, the novel insulation concept allows weight
savings compared to the MLI for holding times of up to 2 h.

Fig. 9 e Dimensionless passive heat input during cruise flight for the investigated tank insulation concepts as a function of
the design holding time by retrofitting a DHC-8-401 with a total LH2 mass of 147.9 kg to be stored and an outside tank
diameter of 2.7 m
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f h y d r o g e n e n e r g y 4 7 ( 2 0 2 2 ) 3 1 3 9 5 e3 1 4 0 8
Regarding a design for an overnight stop of 12 h, the MLI
outperforms both other concepts in terms of weight and vol-
ume. However, the novel concept is able to withstand an
overnight-stop while promising a more reliable system due to
its increased robustness against an active heating system
failure and the fact that it does not require a vacuum; a safety
concern for aviation applications.
Previous studies [14,19] indicated that one of the most
sensitive design variables concerning gravimetric tank effi-
ciency, is the tank diameter. The larger it is selected, the
smaller becomes the resulting AVR, which reduces the influ-
ence of the tank surface, thus tank wall, and tank insulation,
on the tank weight and the overall space requirement of the
tank. This is confirmed in the present study. At the same time,
the declining AVR reduces the potential for performance
improvement by switching to the novel insulation concept,
the additional weight of the introduced double wall can be less
and less outweighed by the savings in insulation weight.
Therefore, while the MLI still allows weight savings for small
tanks compared to the other two insulation concepts, it leads
to the largest structural weights for larger LH2 tanks. What
remains for both the MLI and the new insulation concept,
however, is a considerable minimization of the tank's overall
space requirement compared to the pure foam insulation,
which is easily up to 30% for the new concept and up to 100%
for the MLI concept.
The passive heat input in cruise flight in the case of the
new concept is particularly high for smaller tanks, due to the
comparatively high AVR. On average, hQ;cr_ of the novel concept
exceeds that of a pure PU foam and MLI insulation by 500%.
This indicates significant potentials for savings in required
additional heating power, robustness towards a failure of the
active heating system and general adaptability of the tank
system towards different ambient conditions.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the Deutsche For-
schungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)
under Germany's Excellence Strategy - EXC 2163/1- Sustain-
able and Energy Efficient Aviation - Project-ID 390881007.
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[35] Wang D, Liao B, Zheng J, Huang G, Hua Z, Gu C, et al. f: fairing
Development of regulations, codes and standards on FC,purge: referring to the anode purge of a PEM-fuel cell stack
composite tanks for on-board gaseous hydrogen storage. Int J g: gasous
Hydrogen Energy 2019;44(40):22643e53. https://doi.org/ out: outgoing
10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.04.133. grav: referring to the gravimetric energy density
[36] European Aviation Safety Agency. Type-certificate Data GH2: gaseous hydrogen
Sheet: No. EASA.A.084 for ATR 42 and ATR 72. 2012. H2: saturated liquid-vapor hydrogen mixture
[37] European Aviation Safety Agency. Type-certificate Data i: inside
Sheet: No. IM.E.041 for engine PW100 series engines. 2018. o: outside
[38] Mensen H. Handbuch der Luftfahrt. Berlin, Heidelberg: ins: insulation
Springer Berlin Heidelberg; 2013. wall: walll
[39] EASA. Type-certificate Data Sheet: No. EASA.IM.A.191 for l: liquid
DHC-8. 2021. LH2: referring to liquid hydrogen
[40] FlyRadius. Bombardier Q400 specifications. Available from: passive: referring to passive heat input out of the environment
https://www.flyradius.com/bombardier-q400/specifications- rad: referring to heat transfer by radiation
dimensions; April 03, 2022. shaft: referring to the engine shaft
[41] Deutsche-Privatjet. Dornier 228-200. Available from: https:// hold: referring to the holding time on the airport ground
www.deutsche-privatjet.de/flugzeugtypen/personen/ tank: referring to the hydrogen tank
dornier-228-200_102.html; March 27, 2022. m,tank: referring to the tank's mass
[42] Pohl VM HW. Hydrogen in future civil aviation. Int J vapBarr: referring to the vapor barrier
Hydrogen Energy 1997;22(10e11):1061e9. vent: venting
V,tank: referring to the tank's volume
List of Symbols Subscript Numbering Meaning:
1,1: outside surface of the outer tank shell
1,2: inside surface of the outer tank shell
2,1: outside surface of the inner tank shell
Symbol Meaning Unit
2,2: inside surface of the inner tank shell
List of Abbreviations:
A: Surface m2
AVR: Area to volume ratio
d: Diameter m
CLL: Cryogenic Liquid Layer
H: Flight altitude m
DOCs: Direct Operating Costs
l: Tank length m
GH2: Gaseous Hydrogen
m: Mass kg
GN2: Gaseous Nitrogen
m:_ Mass flow kg/s
LH2: Liquid Hydrogen
p: Pressure bar
LN2: Liquid Nitrogen
P: Power W