IMPACT OF FUEL TYPE ON AIRCRAFT RANGE: AN INITIAL OPTIMIZATION STUDY

Aviation decarbonization is an essential step to contribute to reduce the CO2 footprint and the impact on climate. Among the various possible avenues to fulfill this requirement, thermal-powered aircraft fueled with liquid hydrogen is considered in this paper. Considering the several challenges at stake, one central question that subsists in deploying such aircraft is the impact of the fuel on the Breguet range. For example, for hydrogen, the density either as a gas or as a liquid is very low compared to other in-use or being considered fuels, yet its specific energy (MJ/kg) is the highest. These two major differences, fluid density and energy density, need to be coupled to the aircraft range to assess accurately what type of flights mission can be covered with hydrogen or other fuel. In this paper, a model is developed and applied to three different fuels to determine the corresponding aircraft range, volume of tank, and engine fuel mass flow rate for two mission profiles and two aircraft class. The mission profiles considered are both short and long haul. The aircraft studied are narrow-body and wide-body aircraft class. The two main fuels considered in this paper are SAF and hydrogen. The model development is presented as well as the iterative procedure to calculate key quantities. It is shown that for a narrow-body aircraft and a range of 1 322 km, it would require nearly one ton of liquid hydrogen, which represents an estimated corresponding tank volume of 15 m(3). This result is of major importance because as of today narrow-body aircraft are responsible for nearly 50% of the aviation CO2 footprint worldwide and are used on average over distances of 1 322 km.