Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#2This makes no sense to me. Don't you also need cryogenic systems to keep the H2 cold? Wouldn't those use waaaaay more energy than what you save with superconducting motors? Maybe they are talking about short haul flights where the H2 is ground cooled and then used as a cold sink but then in order to keep your electronics cold you're carrying lots more fuel than you need. TFA was too thin to pass the sniff test.
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#3While there might be something to the underlying tech the current two most promising paths to carbon neutral airlines are synthetic fuel generated with green energy and better batteries. It's highly unlikely that exotic, barely developed hydrogen tech that's not even made it to the "tech demonstrator prototype" phase is going to work exactly the way they're hoping in the end. A few % here and there from unexpected circumstances tends to make a big difference in viability, especially in situations where engineering margins or economic margins are thin (both apply to commercial flight).
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#4I have estimated that an Airbus A320 generates something on the order of 80 MW during takeoff. A hydrogen-powered aircraft, for the same freight load, will have benefit of efficiencies not available to an A320, so the needed power will be less, but I don't know how much less.
The 0.5 MW system described looks like a good first step, but should be scaled up quickly. Results will be immediately useful for co-generation and energy storage on terrestrial power systems. For at least the next decade, that will be its only benefit, which may come to overshadow its aviation application, particularly if the latter encounters snags.
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#5This makes no sense to me. Don't you also need cryogenic systems to keep the H2 cold? Wouldn't those use waaaaay more energy than what you save with superconducting motors? Maybe they are talking about short haul flights where the H2 is ground cooled and then used as a cold sink but then in order to keep your electronics cold you're carrying lots more fuel than you need. TFA was too thin to pass the sniff test.
Motors are solid 3D structures. The more power you put in not superconducting, the more heat you have to extract. Superconductors mean you only need to keep your refrigerant cool, and that's a product of insulation effectiveness, not power output.
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#6The failure modes are going to be interesting, to say the least...
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#7This makes no sense to me. Don't you also need cryogenic systems to keep the H2 cold? Wouldn't those use waaaaay more energy than what you save with superconducting motors? Maybe they are talking about short haul flights where the H2 is ground cooled and then used as a cold sink but then in order to keep your electronics cold you're carrying lots more fuel than you need. TFA was too thin to pass the sniff test.
I think the idea is to use the H2 both as fuel and refrigerant.
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#8While there might be something to the underlying tech the current two most promising paths to carbon neutral airlines are synthetic fuel generated with green energy and better batteries. It's highly unlikely that exotic, barely developed hydrogen tech that's not even made it to the "tech demonstrator prototype" phase is going to work exactly the way they're hoping in the end. A few % here and there from unexpected ci…
[superseded]
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#9This makes no sense to me. Don't you also need cryogenic systems to keep the H2 cold? Wouldn't those use waaaaay more energy than what you save with superconducting motors? Maybe they are talking about short haul flights where the H2 is ground cooled and then used as a cold sink but then in order to keep your electronics cold you're carrying lots more fuel than you need. TFA was too thin to pass the sniff test.
The idea is that a large-scale LH2 flow into the system is being consumed, and perforce heated, and may be used as refrigerant on the way there. It makes perfect sense.
Rockets do this today, as indeed they have done from the earliest days, sending liquified gases through channels in the engine bell and combustion chamber before burning, keeping them both from vaporizing.
Here, the very high efficiency of electric-driven turbines is offset by the lower efficiency of fuel-cell generation, for what is expected to be a substantial net gain over burning H2 in internal combustion turbines.
The latter are the obvious first stage of deployment, taking advantage of LH2's extreme energy-to-weight ratio for reducing the takeoff fuel load by as much as 5:1. This form will probably be fielded in existing airframes, displacing some cargo space with in-hull LH2 tanks.
Re: Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen
#10While there might be something to the underlying tech the current two most promising paths to carbon neutral airlines are synthetic fuel generated with green energy and better batteries. It's highly unlikely that exotic, barely developed hydrogen tech that's not even made it to the "tech demonstrator prototype" phase is going to work exactly the way they're hoping in the end. A few % here and there from unexpected ci…
[superseded]
Yeah, people don't like being told they fell for exactly what the editor who chose the title wanted them to fall for.