Karavali Institute Of Technology, Mangalore

Department of Aeronautical Engineering

A Seminar on
“HYDROGEN POWERED AIRCRAFT : THE FUTURE OF AVIATION”

Presented by, Under the guidance of,

Vinay Kumar B Dr. Ravindra Babu G, Ph.D

4KM18AE062 Head of the Aeronautical Dept.

KIT,Mangalore KIT, Mangalore
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Historical review of hydrogen aircraft
3. Hydrogen production
4. Hydrogen fuel storage
5. Hydrogen powered aircraft design
6. Advantages of hydrogen powered aircraft
7. Disadvantages of hydrogen powered aircraft
8. Application of hydrogen powered aircraft
9. Conclusion
10. References
 Introduction
 According to leading experts the aviation industry is expected to grow continuously at a
rapid pace in the coming few decades.

 This increase is due to the tendency in developing countries now requiring additional
travel and cargo.

 There is a requirement to limit the dependency on fossil fuels,although opinions about the
exact date of perilously low levels may vary but the supply of fossil fuels are expected to
be exhausted sometime in this century.

 Hydrogen is a suitable energy storage medium that is free of carbon and other impurities;
it is also the most abundant element in the universe allowing it to be easily sourced.

 Liquid hydrogen has several advantages compared to other fuels,LH2 can be produced at
a given rate because its primary source is water.

 Hydrogen combustors have the capability to provide extremely low Nox emission without
concern of CO2 emissions, as there are none, permitting for a near zero emission
combustor that will be a solution to our climate concerns.
 Historical review of hydrogen aircraft
 Hydrogen was used for the first time in aeronautics for the inflation of balloons. Earlier balloons flew
using hot air as a lifting medium

 In 1783, the French Physicst Jacques Charles and Nicholas Roberrt flew the maiden gas ballon using
hydrogen.

 In 20th century, A German count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin pioneered a type of rigid airship knows as
Zeppelin which is first airship to fly with Hydrogen as fuel and it is designed by himself in 1893

 In 1937,Von Ohion successfully ran a gas turbine fueled by Hydrogen , it is named as Heinkel-
Strahltriebwork(HeS1) experimental engine, which was a turbojet engines which produces
250lb(113.4Kg) of thrust.

 In 1956 US Airforce asked Pratt and Whitney researched by modifying the J-57 engine for hydrogen
fuel injection.

 Finally in 2005, Aerovironment built and tested the World’s first LH2 powered UAV and it also a
High Altitute Long Endurance (HALE).
 Hydrogen Production

 There are several different processes of

hydrogen production available broadly, divided
into three categories named from renewable
resources, nuclear energy and fossil fuel

 There are two main methods which are being

used today for the production of hydrogen

 For the majority (97%) of hydrogen production

natural gas steam reforming is used, The other
major production method is electrolysis of
water. The major benefit of hydrogen production
with electrolysis of water is use of almost all
sources of primary energy.

 Electrolysis of water and gasification of biomass

are promising technologies for future
 Steam Methane Reforming(SMR):
Steam methane reforming is a process in
which
methane from natural gas is heated,with steam, usually with a catalyst, to produce a mixture
of carbon monoxide and hydrogen used in organic synthersis fuel.

 Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting:

In photoelectrochemical water splitting,
hydrogen is produced from water using sunlight specialized semiconductors called
photoelectochemical materials,which use light energy to directly dissociate water
molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

 Biomass Gasification:
Biomass gasification is a mature technology pathway that
uses a controlled proess involving heat, steam, and oxygen to convert biomass to
hydrogen and other products,without combustion.
 Hydrogen fuel storage

 As we know the spherical LH2 tanks are used in space application because it requires less
surface area for a given volume,But manufacturing spherical tanks there is problem it has higher
frontal area compared to cylindrical shaped tank.

 Cylindrical shaped tank is easy to manufacture, they are easier to integrated inside the fuselage
and they give higher volumetric efficiency.Hence the space the fuselage can be used in optimum
way.

 There is also a problem with the cylinder tank is that pressure inside the tank is not distributed
equally, to overcome with this problem the tank is designed to have an end capsule which is
semisphere on both ends as shown in figure.

Cylindrical tank with end cap as semi-sphere .

 The key challenge involved in LH2 storage is mass of boil off which leads to loss of
hydrogen.

 Boil off is the phenomenon that occur when liquid boils and change its state into gaseous
form because of heat transfer, so inorder to minimized boil off the design of tank are
determined by LH2 temperatures,operating pressure and insulations.

 There are 3 types of insulations

 Multilayer insulation
 Vaccum insulation
 Foam insulation
 The size of the tank depends on the mission of the aircraft and the requirements.
 Hydrogen powered aircraft design
 The primary constraints in the aircraft design is feasibility, special focus is kept on designing aircraft that can fit
within the existing airline operations.

 Hydrogen combustion is considered for the propulsion system, existing turbine designs can run on hydrogen
with a few modifications as suggested by the cryoplane project.

 The reference aircrafts are ATR-72 For Turboprop and AIRBUS A320neo for narrow body turbofan.

 The aircraft can be designed based on the design parameters as shown in the table

LH2 Turboprop LH2

Narrow-body

ATR 72 A320neo
Fuselage length (m) 27.17 32.02 37.57 44.51

Wingspan (m) 27.05 32.5 35.8 35.8

AR 12 15 10 10

Mean aerodynamic chord (m) 2.34 2.43 3.63 4.01

Taper ratio 0.5 0.25 0.27 0.25

Passengers 70 165

Cruising Mach number 0. 452 0.78

Cruising altitude (ft) 20, 000 35,000

 The images represents the tank and passenger cabin layout for the LH2-powered turboprop &
narrow-body aircrafts

 The main changes in this design is the fuel tank is placed in fuselage, behind the passenger cabin
rather than the wings
 As the fuel tank is placed behind the passenger cabin in the fuseage moves the center of-gravity
of the aircraft. Consequently, maintaining the tail-volume coefficient of the reference aircraft
requires a larger tail empennage.

 The wing is also moved aft along the fuselage to keep the aircraft’s neutral point behind its
center of gravity and ensure static stability .
 Advantages

 Almost zero emissions

 Reduces the airpollutants, greenhouse gases

 Hydrogen is renewable and readily available

 Reduces the dependency on fossil fuels which are non renewable energy

 When there is a hydrogen leak it will continue to combust in a controlled manner until the
tank is empty, whearas the kerosene has ability to cover the entire the aircraft after one minute
and may destroy the aircraft.

 As it emits only water hence pollution less environment.

 Disadvantages

 Hydrogen energy is expensive

 Fossil based hydrogen costs $ 1.80/Kg and SMR based hydrogen costs around
$2.40/Kg

 Storage complications

 The range hydrogen powered aircraft is very less is around 1000-2000nmi(1852-3704

Km)

 The passenger capacity is also vey less is around 70-200

 As it is still in research and development stage there is no perfect infrastructure at this

time.
 Application

 Airbus is trying to develop world’s first hydrogen powered aircrafts which are Zero E enabled.

 The images below showing the conceptutional design of the turboprop,turbofan,blended wing
body designed hydrogen powered aircrafts which may come to service by 2035.
 Conclusion

 Hydrogen is a renewable source which can be used as fuel for aviation.

 As fossil fuels are non renewable and which produces more emission of greenhouse
gases and other harmfull pollutants like nitrogen oxide.

 Hydrogen powered aircrafts are atmost zero emission aircrafts.

 Hydrogen powered aircraft are hence the future of aviation.

 Reference

1. Hydrogen powered aircraft : The future of air transport

Bhupendra Khandelwal n, Adam Karakurt, Paulas R. Sekaran, Vishal Sethi, Riti Singh
Department of Power and Propulsion, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire
MK43 0AL, UK

2. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF EVOLUTIONARY HYDROGEN-POWERED

AIRCRAFT
Jayant Mukhopadhaya, Ph.D. and Dan Rutherford, Ph.D
THANK YOU