H2GEAR Hydrogen Electric Powertrain – System Architecture

Abstract

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-3874.vid GKN Aerospace is committed to making a substantial difference commitment to the achievement of sustainable aviation at the earliest practical opportunity. As part of this, one of the technologies being considered is Hydrogen Electric Propulsion (H2EP) as part of the Hybrid Hydrogen Electric Architecture (H2GEAR) programme. The system comprises hydrogen fuel cells supplied with hydrogen from a liquid hydrogen source which is used for both its energetic and heat sink potential. The synergistic benefits of a cryogenically cooled system and how this can be used to give an optimised energy conversion and low specific mass system is highlighted. Some of the configuration selection decisions considered for the powertrain in a notional aircraft configuration context are presented including safety driven configuration decisions. Expected trends and requirements for technology growth are presented that enable the scalability of the powertrain concept and its applicability to larger scale vehicles. The H2GEAR technology demonstrator is expected progress to complete system demonstration by 2025.