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Aviation is an ever-increasing market and more passengers and cargo are carried
each year. The world is becoming ever more connected. However, this does come at a
price: aviation has a marked influence on the environment. If aviation is to thrive in
the future, breakthroughs in aircraft design and propulsion systems are needed. The
AHEAD project is an attempt at achieving such a breakthrough.
TEXT Arvind G. Rao and Feijia Yin, Flight Performance and Propulsion TU Delft
CHALLENGES FACED BY AVIATION Research in Aeronautics (ACARE) has tar- that aviation will see a significant use of
Commercial aviation has made substantial geted the reduction on various fronts of alternative fuels, starting with synthetic
progress since its inception and is now the noise, air pollution and fuel consumption. fuels such as Gas To Liquid (GTL), Coal
backbone of a modern society. In the past The ACARE goal is shown in Figure 1. It To Liquid (CTL) and biofuels. In a few
ten years, passenger numbers have grown aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 75%, NOx decades, hydrogen or hydrogen-rich fu-
by 45% and freight traffic has increased by emissions by 90% and the perceived noise els, such as Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) can
more than 80% on a tonne-kilometre ba- levels by half in the year 2050, compared probably be used to reduce the carbon
sis [1]. Moreover, aircraft emissions have to the baseline year 2000 [2]. To achieve footprint of aviation for long range air-
reduced significantly over the last forty this objective, a combined improvement craft. By the end of this century, we might
years, for example, noise has reduced by in the aircraft, power plant and the air traf- have the technologies in place for power-
20 decibels, fuel consumption by 70%, fic management system is required. ing an aircraft electrically.
carbon monoxide emissions by 50% and As is known, the reduction of NOx emis- Due to its much higher energy density
unburned hydrocarbon and smoke by sion mostly depends on the evolution of than kerosene, hydrogen can reduce the
90% [1]. Despite all these positive devel- combustion technology. However, CO2 amount of fuel which needs to be carried
opments, some serious challenges to- emission is the product of chemical reac- onboard. Moreover, as a type of non-car-
ward the environment, the community tions between the carbon content of the bon fuel, burning hydrogen will be able
and the availability of fuel resources are fuel and air: as long as conventional fuel to reduce the CO2 emission significantly,
encountered by aviation. The total emis- is in use, the ACARE goal to reduce CO2 which makes it very attractive. Some ef-
sions from the aviation sector are still emission remains difficult. To achieve this forts have been made to prove the fea-
increasing rapidly and now the sector is target, alternative fuels have been put for- sibility of implementing the hydrogen in
an active contributor to global warming. ward. A scenario of future aviation fuels aviation. The “Cryoplane” concept under
Therefore, the Advisory Committee for are indicated in Figure 2. It is anticipated the 5th Framework Program of the Euro-
Figure 1. ACARE vision for Europe Figure 2. Primary energy source for long range aircraft
Figure 3. LH2 tank storage scheme of “Cryoplane” project Figure 4. A futuristic BWB aircraft layout with LH2 and biofuel tanks
pean Commission is one of the examples. cryogenic fuel. a method of increasing the propulsive ef-
Conventionally, fuel is stored in the wings ficiency of the engine by embedding the
A novel way to overcome the storage
of an aircraft. However, the liquid hydro- engine within the airframe such that the
problems of hydrogen is a multi-fuel BWB
gen (LH2) has to be stored in pressurized engine can ingest the low velocity bound-
aircraft presented in Figure 4. The wings
cryogenic cylindrical tanks, which do not ary layer flow of the aircraft, reducing the
of a BWB have sufficient room for storing
fit in the wings. Therefore, the fuselage engine ram drag. Also, the jet of the en-
LH2 tanks, without interfering with the
was considered to accommodate the fuel gine contributes to aircraft “wake filling”,
passenger section. Further away from the
tanks in the “Cryoplane”, as indicated in thus reducing the overall dissipation.
central line, where wing thickness is re-
Figure 3 [3]. Although the fuel tanks are
duced, liquid biofuel can be stored. Thus,
accommodated, this configuration is not Counter-Rotating Fans (CRF): The air-
a multi-fuel BWB concept with a combina-
so suitable from a passenger comfort, craft-engine integration of future BWB
tion of biofuel and cryogenic fuel is pro-
safety and aerodynamics point of view. aircraft presents unique challenges due to
posed and investigated by the “AHEAD”
BLI. Such configurations also require that
project sponsored under the 7th Frame-
THE MULTI-FUEL BLENDED WING engines be smaller in diameter to reduce
work of EU.
BODY AIRCRAFT the nacelle-wetted area. Thus, it can be
To summarize, according to the current re- seen that the current trend of increasing
THE HYBRID ENGINE
search efforts based on current technolo- bypass ratio and diameter of engines will
To power the multi-fuel BWB aircraft, a
gies, there seems to be a very little chance not be able to meet the requirements of
new type of propulsion system—called
to meet the ACARE goals and therefore future BWB class of aircraft. The proposed
the hybrid engine—has been conceived,
breakthrough technology is needed. Dur- hybrid engine with counter-rotating fans
which is able to meet the requirements of
ing the past years, an innovative Blended has a smaller diameter and higher propul-
the multi-fuel BWB aircraft. The novel fea-
Wing Body (BWB) configuration has been sive efficiency for the same bypass ratio.
tures of this engine and its schematic are
studied by many researchers around the Furthermore, since each stage of the fan is
shown in Figure 5.
world, including the “CleanEra” group less loaded than a single stage fan, a CRF
from TU Delft, and it seems to be a prom- The novel engine proposed is quite differ- engine can sustain more non-uniformities
ising candidate to replace the existing ent than a conventional turbofan and in- in the flow generated due to BLI com-
aircrafts. Instead of a separate fuselage cludes many breakthrough technologies. pared to a conventional architecture.
with wings, an integration of body and The various novel technologies involved
wing is used for the BWB [4]. This results in the proposed engine configuration are Bleed Cooling: With increasing pressure
in a larger amount of space available described as follows. ratio, the temperature of bleed air (the air
within the aircraft, thus making it possible that is used for cooling the hot section
to carry cylindrical fuel tanks to store the Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI): this is components like the turbine blades and