Blogger Widgets
"Energy independence has to be our nation's first and highest priority. We must be determined to achieve this within the next 25 years i.e. by the year 2030." – Abdul Kalam, 2005

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Fuelcell on Airbus - New Technology

Hydrogen fuel cells are nowhere near powerful enough to replace a commercial aircraft's engines, but that doesn't mean they can't help make air travel cleaner and more efficient.

Airbus plans flight tests of a fuel-cell system that could reduce fuel consumption by as much as 15 percent simply by powering an aircraft's nonpropulsion systems—such as the lights, the entertainment system, and the environmental controls.

The 90-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell will be installed into an A320 owned by the German Aerospace Center with the aim of commencing test flights by 2015.

The fuel cell will act as an auxiliary power source, says Jeff Rolf, vice president of business development and global services at Cleveland, Ohio-based Parker Aerospace, which is developing the system with Airbus. The idea is to remove the need to run the engines when the plane is on the ground, and to reduce the drain normally placed on the engines by nonpropulsion systems during flight.

Besides the lights, entertainment system, and environment controls, the fuel cell will power the avionics, the hydraulics, and the system used to keep fuel tanks safe by maintaining artificially low oxygen levels. Currently, an aircraft's main engines produce electrical power for these systems during a flight while a separate auxiliary power unit—a small turbine often contained within the tail—powers them on the ground.

"The advantage of a fuel cell is, you have direct conversion of energy from chemical to electrical," says Michel Loignon, an engineering manager at Airbus. "We're taking a collection of reasonably mature technologies and integrating them."

To accommodate the need for additional power, aircraft are often designed with slightly larger engines than is strictly necessary, increasing the overall weight of the aircraft. The weight of the fuel cell and its fuel supply would be more than offset by the removal of the auxiliary power unit and the fact that it generates power more efficiently, says Loignon.

There are other savings to be had. "[The fuel cell] breathes air, so it will displace oxygen and generate water," says Rolf. This means the system could reduce the amount of water the aircraft needs to carry at takeoff; on some large airliners that water can weigh as much as 3,000 pounds. The oxygen could also help keep the fuel tanks stable. These savings will eventually be combined with electric-powered wheels for taxiing. "In the commercial implementation, we are hoping to achieve north of 15 percent" overall fuel savings, says Rolf.

"In the long term, it's a good idea," says William Crowther, an aerospace engineer at Manchester University, in the U.K. But he cautions that fuel cells can be bulky, which can sometimes be more of an issue than weight on an aircraft. He also notes that carrying hydrogen on board will introduce new safety challenges.  

4 comments:

  1. By applying light throttle and avoiding heavy braking, you can reduce both fuel consumption and wear and tear. Try to predict traffic at junctions and when in queuing to avoid accelerating and then braking.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like your blog and have one with similar information. If

    you have time check it out.
    fuel injection

    cleaning

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am very happy to read this article. Thanks for giving us this useful information. A novel graphene-based electrode, produced with a standard LightScribe DVD optical drive, ends the search for an optimal electrochemical Graphene Battery. Graphene Information: Learn about the use of Graphene in Graphene ultra- and supercapacitors, Graphene Transistors and Graphene Batteries. Thanks for sharing.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Booking Buddy is the #1 travel booking search website, that you can use to compare travel deals from the big travel booking sites.

    ReplyDelete