Exploration of a Reverse Turbo-Brayton Cryocooler for Carbon Neutral Aeronautical Applications: Integrated Cryocooler Design and Tank Modeling for Cryogenic Liquid Hydrogen in Long Range Flight

Climate change is a pressing issue. Hydrogen aircraft are an excellent alternative to current kerosene aircraft, and appear to be the most viable long-term solution for net-zero flight. One of the main challenges for hydrogen aircraft is to sustain a low boil-off rate. This research explores the solution of active cooling of the LH2 mixture in the fuel tank. It focusses on the construction of a thermodynamic model for cryogenic liquid hydrogen fuel storage in aircraft, a system model for single-stage Reverse Turbo-Brayton Cryocoolers (RTBC), and the conceptual design of the RTBC’s miniature high-speed compressor. This is used for the integrated modelling of the RTBC, compressor and LH2 fuel tank for an exploration study of the carbon neutral hydrogen concept of the long-range Flying-V aircraft. Results show that the RTBC might offer a valuable addition to the Flying-V design space for boil-off control in addition to careful design of the insulation and tank shape. / Aerospace Engineering