Airbus ZEROe (Zero Emissions) Aircraft Concepts

[RavenOne]

Airbus reveals new zero-emission concept aircraft

Airbus has revealed three concepts for the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft which could enter service by 2035. These concepts each represent a different approach to achieving zero-emission flight, exploring various technology pathways and aerodynamic configurations in order to...

www.airbus.com

Cheers

 

[galgot]

Interesting. And nice renders.
Wonder what is the use of that small blade at the top of the fin on the concept on the foreground :

 

[TomcatViP]

Static pressure or vent for tanks?

 

[Archibald]

And where does all the hydrogen goes ?

because the usual hydrogen aircraft rather looks like this

2.5 more volume for the same mass, and it can't go into the wings...

This of course is for liquid hydrogen fed into classic turbofans. Now, does lithium batteries or fuel cells or something else, changed that ? Or maybe that clever REL trick to turn ammonia into LH2 ?

 

[galgot]

And where does all the hydrogen goes ?

because the usual hydrogen aircraft rather looks like this

2.5 more volume for the same mass, and it can't go into the wings...

For the A320 and ATRish lookalike I think it would be in the rear fuselage , after the last passenger door.
"The liquid hydrogen storage and distribution system is located behind the rear pressure bulkhead. "
For the BWB they say :
"The liquid hydrogen storage tanks are stored underneath the wings."
But I don't really understand what that mean, cause I see no tanks there. Maybe in the outer part on the "fat" BWB body ?

Also the BWB text mention "two hybrid hydrogen turbofan engines provide thrust."
And I see height fans intakes in two fairings there...

 

[Archibald]

I think the key is that it is NOT a straight swap "hydrogen instead of kerosene".

Seems that they use electric motors to boost the turbofans and massively improve their efficiency.

The electricity for the motors would come, either from batteries, or from hydrogen fuel cells.

So hydrogen would be used two different ways

- burn straight into the turbofans, as kerosene

- hydrogen feed fuel cells, which provide electricity to big electric motors which boost the turbofans.

 

[TomS]

Static pressure or vent for tanks?

Yes I expect it will be for venting - this was done for the russian project in the 90s.

That was my guess as well. But it's interesting that they don't have a similar structure (at least an obvious one) on the prop or blended wing-body designs.

 

[TomcatViP]

To complement (as I was writing this simultaneously):

For the prop model, logic tells me it's because they already have a high mounted tail (the vents/static pressure would be in the rear fairing of the tail cone).
With the low tail, there is not enough clearance to put that in the tail cone (runway strike). Hence the Eiffel/Snorkel mount.

 

[TomS]

One thing I'm thinking is that the use case here isn't quite the same as a normal fuel dump mast. A normal dump only gets used occasionally, and pretty much only while in flight. Assuming cryo fuel, LH2 is going to be constantly boiling off as it warms up (like while sitting on the ground), so they'll have a fairly steady flow of excess gaseous hydrogen to get rid of, and they probably want to dump that above the aircraft so it can just dissipate into the atmosphere instead of blowing into ground equipment, baggage handlers, etc. Hence the choice to vent at the top of the tail fin instead of blowing it out the tailcone or similar.