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Download fileA fuel cell system sizing tool based on current production aircraft
conference contribution
posted on 2017-11-30, 09:58 authored by Alex Thirkell, Rui Chen, Ian HarringtonElectrification of aircraft is on track to be a future key design principal due to the increasing pressure on the aviation industry to significantly reduce harmful emissions by 2050 and the increased use of electrical equipment. This has led to an increased focus on the research and development of alternative power sources for aircraft, including fuel cells. These alternative power sources could either be used to provide propulsive power or as an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). Previous studies have considered isolated design cases where a fuel cell system was tailored for their specific application. To accommodate for the large variation between aircraft, this study covers the design of an empirical model, which will be used to size a fuel cell system for any given aircraft based on basic design parameters. The model was constructed utilising aircraft categorisation, fuel cell sizing and balance of plant sub-models. Fifteen aircraft categories were defined based on the primary function and propulsion method of the aircraft. For each category, propulsive power and electrical generation requirements were calculated. Based on the results from categorisation and the flight envelope of the aircraft, fuel cell and balance of plant systems are defined. The total system mass and volume are given as outputs, along with polarisation and power curves for the fuel cell. This study finds that the model can accurately predict the electrical generation capability and propulsive requirements across the defined aircraft categories. In addition, the model can appropriately define key, high-level fuel cell parameters based on current Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) technology. Total fuel cell system mass and volume are calculated and shown to be reasonable for small aircraft. For larger aircraft with a Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW) greater than 50,000kg, current PEM technology is not able to match the gravimetric power density of existing APUs.
Funding
Funding from EPSRC CDT in Fuel Cells and their Fuels: EP/L015749/1.
History
School
- Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Department
- Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering
Published in
AeroTech Congress & Exhibition SAE Technical PapersVolume
Part F129883Issue
SeptemberCitation
THIRKELL, A., CHEN, R. and HARRINGTON, I., 2017. A fuel cell system sizing tool based on current production aircraft. SAE Technical Paper, 2017-01-2135, 2017, doi:10.4271/2017-01-2135.Publisher
© SAE InternationalVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2017Notes
This paper was published in the SAE Technical Paper Series and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.4271/2017-01-2135. This conference paper was presented at the AeroTech Congress & Exhibition, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, 26th-28th September 2017. http://papers.sae.org/2017-01-2135ISSN
0148-7191Publisher version
Book series
SAE Technical Paper;2017-01-2135Language
- en