HYDEA

Project Description

Hydrogen is considered the most promising zero-emission technology to reduce aviation’s climate impact by 2035, in line with the European Green Deal and Clean Aviation Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). In this context, the EU-funded external page HYDEA project proposes a robust and efficient technology maturation plan to develop an H2 propulsion system. The project will comprehensively demonstrate the feasibility of hydrogen propulsion on an aircraft engine in a compacted timeframe (2023-2026) up to the ground test. HYDEA will address fundamental questions for hydrogen as an aviation fuel, including emission studies and technologies, and pave the way for the development and certification of new products integrating hydrogen technology.

CAPS Lab, with its unique expertise in testing, diagnostics, and numerical analysis of reactive flows will conduct tests on full-scale prototype burners at elevated pressure with the test rig Download Pele (PDF, 4.8 MB), and lead the analysis and modeling of the highly-reactive combustion process associated with hydrogen fuel. Recently, a news article on one of our contributions to the project, specifically the measurement of the acoustic behaviour of hydrogen injection nozzles under conditions similar to those prevalent at cruising altitude, was published here.

Objective

The HYDEA project, which stands for “HYdrogen DEmonstrator for Aviation”, proposes a robust technology maturation plan to develop an H2C (Hydrogen Combustion) propulsion system compatible with an Entry Into Service of a zero-CO2 low-emission aircraft in 2035, consistently with the expected timeframe of the European Green Deal and CA SRIA objectives. The project aims to address fundamental questions related to the use of hydrogen as an aviation fuel, concentrating on the development and testing in relevant conditions of an H2 combustor and H2 fuel system, also including emission studies and further technologies which will serve as an outlook to future engines, i.e. NOx optimization studies, potential contrails emissions and investigating integration aspects between engine and aircraft. HYDEA results will be core for the ZEROe technology exploration project, launched by Airbus in 2020.