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A review on hydrogen industrial aerospace applications [1]

['Committee On Air Force', 'Department Of Defense Aerospace Propulsion Needs', 'National Research Council']

Date: 2014-07-03

Nowadays, more than 85% of the global energy system is based on the utilization of fossil fuel such as oil, natural gas and coal, but they are expected to be exhausted by this century. Besides this, economies of emerging countries will make fossil fuel price more volatile in the next future [1]. Hence, it is required to limit the dependency on fossil fuels and find alternative energy sources. Such a scenario is going to affect the aerospace industry in the next future. Today another decision making issue is pollution. Combustion of conventional fossil fuels is characterized by products that may cause environmental pollution and climate changes: carbon dioxide, water vapor, NO x , unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC), carbon monoxide, particulate and SO x . At present, civil air traffic contribution to the total anthropogenic emissions is about 3% for NO x and 2.6% for CO 2 [2]. These values may change due to the expected growth of the global air traffic in the near future. It is not demonstrated that the consequent increase of greenhouse gases could be compensated by simply improving aircraft propulsion systems [3].

All these considerations are strong drivers for the development and research of alternative fuels. Hydrogen is the best candidate alternative energy source for aerospace propulsion and future hypersonic air-breathing launchers and trans-atmospheric aircrafts.

The paper is organized as follows. In Hydrogen Choice Motivation Section the main features of hydrogen as fuel are presented. In History of Hydrogen as Propellant Section the history of hydrogen as propellant in aeronautic and rocket propulsion applications is described. Hydrogen Fueled Engines Section presents the state of the art technologies for hydrogen fueled gas turbines and hypersonic engines.

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[1] Url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319914011847

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