Scenario-based implications of liquid hydrogen storage tank insulation quality for a short-range aircraft concept

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Abstract

The operation of liquid hydrogen fueled aircraft differs from the well-known operations with kerosene. Heat input in the liquid hydrogen storage leads to boil-off during different phases of the aircraft operation, including extended stays on ground. To support the decision on different insulation architectures of the hydrogen storage compartment, this paper studies the implications of a required tank insulation quality on the total fuel consumption of a liquid hydrogen fueled aircraft. A coupled methodology is carried out to combine the design of the aircraft and the hydrogen fuel system with the final assessment. Therefore, multidisciplinary and multi-fidelity models cover the domains of overall aircraft design, thermodynamic and structural hydrogen storage sizing. These disciplines are linked together, forming an executable workflow for the aircraft sizing including all snowball effects. The final assessment is conducted for different operational scenarios, based on historic flight data. The operational scenarios consider different airline business models, distance networks and hydrogen airport infrastructures. As a use case, this methodology is applied on a liquid hydrogen fueled short-range aircraft concept, which has been adapted from an A321neo. The short-range aircraft concept is sized with different insulation architectures and compared with respect to the total hydrogen consumption and the direct operating cost. A dependency of the operational scenario on the most suitable insulation architecture can be identified. This underlines the necessity of a coupled approach to derive sensitivities of a required tank insulation on aircraft performance and operating costs.

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• Scenario-based implications of liquid hydrogen storage tank insulation quality for a short-range aircraft concept. (deposited 20 Nov 2023 06:52) [Currently Displayed]