Estimating the Scheduled Maintenance Implications for a Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft

Abstract

The aviation industry is faced with an existential challenge of reducing their ecological footprint within the coming decades to meet regulatory requirements such as the European Green Deal. While the industry has followed the approach of incremental fuel efficiency gains in the past, much of the associated greenhouse gas reduction has been negated by an increased air traffic volume. Therefore, more disruptive technologies such as the use of hydrogen as energy carrier are required to comply with international regulations in the future. However, despite initial euphoria and first conceptual studies for hydrogen-powered aircraft several decades ago, there has been no mass adoption to this day. Besides the challenges of a suitable ground infrastructure, this can be attributed to uncertainties with the associated maintenance requirements and the expected operating costs to ensure economic viability for operators. With this study, we address this knowledge gap by estimating changes towards scheduled maintenance activities when substituting a kerosene-based with a hydrogen-powered, fuel cell-based auxiliary power generation. In particular, we develop a detailed system design with strong focus on regulatory compliance and perform a comparative analysis with an Airbus A320 legacy system. That analysis allows us to (a) identify changes for the expected maintenance effort to estimate implications on the economic viability for operators, (b) identify how specific design assumptions correspond with subsequent maintenance activities and (c) describe the impact on the resulting task execution. Consequently, this study can support practitioners in the development of prospective hydrogen-powered aircraft, especially by including maintenance requirements in early design stages of possible system architectures. Furthermore, since the presented methodology is transferable to different design solutions, it provides a blueprint for alternative operating concepts, e.g., the complete substitution of kerosene by hydrogen for the aircraft’s propulsion.