The addressing of these challenges will enable aircraft engines to safely, efficiently and predictably heat and pressurise liquid hydrogen fuel

The European aviation industry has committed to achieving net-zero aircraft propulsion by 2050 by introducing innovative technologies such as hydrogen fuelled jet engines. Industry expects the introduction of hydrogen to make the greatest contribution to decarbonisation by 2050 as hydrogen combustion emits only water and can be produced carbon-free. However, storing hydrogen in aircraft tanks poses engineering challenges as the fuel must be kept at high pressures and cryogenic temperatures to avoid excessive large and heavy tanks.

The programme aims to investigate the intractable problem of engineering the cryogenic fuel system and combustor with a focus on the dynamic interaction between these. “How do we address the challenges of using hydrogen in the supercritical state?”, “How do predict pressure and heat transfer in cryogenic fuel lines”, “How do we characterise combustion instabilities generated by injecting liquid hydrogen in the gas generator?”, “What will be the dominant failure mechanisms induced by materials in contact with hydrogen?”; are within the questions that this project aims to answer. The addressing of these challenges will enable aircraft engines to safely, efficiently and predictably heat and pressurise liquid hydrogen fuel from the cryogenic conditions that it is stored at in the aircraft tank to temperatures suitable for injection in the combustor.

The team’s approach will allow the scientific challenges of pressurising, heating and combusting initially cryogenic hydrogen to enable hydrogen combustion at the heart of LH2 fuelled gas turbines. The coupling between experiments, numerical modelling, and analysis, simultaneously employing an interdisciplinary approach will generate the optimal technologies to empower hydrogen fuel on Civil Aviation.