Liquid Hydrogen pumps for civil aviation

Commercial aviation is responsible for 2.5% [1] of global greenhouse gas emissions and this percentage is set to rise as the demand for both passenger and cargo capacity increases. Liquid hydrogen is a promising alternative to carbon-based fuels because it has favourable combustion properties and no emissions at the point of use. The low density of hydrogen, however, mandates the use of cryogenic storage, which rises formidable technical challenges. The technologies to use cryogenically stored fuels do exist, but they are the preserve of space or strategic defence applications and therefore, cannot be easily deployed in commercial products. Furthermore, the service required of civil cryogenic fuel systems is very different from the service of space/defence applications and new technologies are needed.

The purpose of this project is to understand the performance and hydrodynamic features of pumps for liquid hydrogen in civil aviation. The pumps are required to produce pressure rises in the order of 70bar while handling very small amounts of fuel. They are subject to cavitation and are sensitive to heat pick up because of the very large thermal expansion coefficient of liquid hydrogen.

This project will address the following questions:
What is the best machine type for the service typical of a large civil turbofan?
What is the optimal flow arrangement?
What is the best location for the pump in the fuel line?
What is the performance of such a pump both at design point and off design?

The project will deploy advanced numerical methods for nearly incompressible flow and will aim to build a fully validated capability for cryogenic pumps in civil aerospace

This project falls within the EPSRC Fluid dynamics and aerodynamics research area. Rolls Royce is the industrial partner in this project.

This is a EPSCR Industrial Case Studentship in collaboration with Rolls-Royce.
References

[1] T. Yusaf, L. Fernandes, A. Abu Talib, Y. Altarazi, W. Alrefae, K. Kadirgama, D....