Keynote at ISABE 2024: Towards Climate Compatible Propulsion

Kurzfassung

The talk presents the perspective of the DLR Institute of Propulsion Technology on the future of aircraft propulsion against the background of three major transformative forces: (1) the objective of climate neutral aviation until 2050, derived from this (2) an ambitious time-to-market objective and (3) the necessary profitability and affordability of the new technologies. We expect that propulsion technologies will diversify but gas turbines will remain the central technology. While introducing climate compatible energy carriers like SAF and hydrogen is priority ambitious improvements of gas turbine-based propulsion are necessary. They are achievable by exploiting interactions between engine modules and system integration aspects. Rapid product development will be enabled by unsteady design methods and a collaborative Virtual Engine approach. Combining high-TRL testing with innovative optical measurement methods accelerates technology development.