Hydrogen fuel cell aircraft for the Nordic market

Journal article, 2024

A model for a fuel cell propelled 50 PAX hydrogen aircraft is developed. In terms of year 2045 Nordic air travel demand this aircraft is expected to cover 97% of travel distances and 58% of daily passenger volume. Using an ATR 42 as a baseline, cryogenic tanks and fuel cell stacks are sized and propulsion system masses updated. Fuselage and wing resizing are required, which increases mass and wetted area. Sizing methods for the multi-stack fuel cell and the cryogenic tanks are implemented. The dynamic aircraft model is updated with models for hydrogen consumption and tank pressure control. For the Multi-layer insulation (MLI) tank a trade study is performed. A ventilation pressure of 1.76 bar and 15 MLI layers are found to be optimal for the design mission. A return-without-refuel mission is explored, where for a 10-hour ground hold 38.4% of the design range is retained out of the theoretically achievable 50%.