Sunday morning thinking. Something to discuss.

Lots of hurdles too overcome but with the focus on reducing Carbon emissions it struck me that if you sacrifice the A380 upper deck for Hydrogen Storage it could be a great use for the cross section and a possible future for the Airframe.

I know it would take some time to figure out how to use Hydrogen in Aircraft operations but you could easily convert one of the A380 test airframes to Hydrogen and start a test program to figure out the kinks.

It seems like a great EU research project.

If you put it into production you would have to figure out how to make Hydrogen cheaply - France seems to have lots of cheap Carbon Free nuclear power at night.

You would also have to optimize the A380 for hydrogen - which would mean a new wing, new gear.

You need cylinder shapes to store Hydrogen - you can't really put it in the wings. You would store it in Cylinders in the upper deck.

However as Hydrogen is so light (1/3 the weight of Jet Fuel for the same range) you could probably get away with 2 bumped up Ge9x's. They were tested to 135K.

The MTOW would probably be a lot closer to 400T then the 575T existing.

New gear - new optimized 80M wing with folding tips that might go out to 90M extended.

Stretch it to 85m as originally envisioned and go to 11W Y class to pick up passenger capacity on the main deck - that's a 13M stretch.

It could get it back to about A388 Capacity.

The tail could probably get a lot smaller due to the longer moment arm and greatly MTOW weight. Lighter gear for sure.

It could work - it's probably a good idea to preserve the tooling to make fuselages.

Time for the EU to fund some research!

Some people think me a Boeing Fan Boy but in reality I just like shiny new metal. This would be exciting but would probably be 10+ years (5 years for test program and then 5+ years to reengineer A380 to take advantage of hydrogen's properties).

What? Filled with hydrogen like Hindenburg?

VV wrote:

What? Filled with hydrogen like Hindenburg?

No potentially a lot safer than Jet Fueled powered aircraft.

https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2017/03/17/so- ... ogen-fuel/

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/11 ... g-jet-fuel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-powered_aircraft

The storage density per unit energy of liquid hydrogen vs petroleum fuel is about 1:4. That doesn't include the weight of the much heavier hydrogen storage tanks. Hydrogen can be stored in other ways to avoid the cryogenic requirements for true liquid hydrogen but those have their own complications and inefficiencies.

Or, turn the A380 into a slow-moving airship as someone else alluded to.

robsaw wrote:

The storage density per unit energy of liquid hydrogen vs petroleum fuel is about 1:4. That doesn't include the weight of the much heavier hydrogen storage tanks. Hydrogen can be stored in other ways to avoid the cryogenic requirements for true liquid hydrogen but those have their own complications and inefficiencies.

Or, turn the A380 into a slow-moving airship as someone else alluded to.

Yes totally understand that Hydrogen takes up more space - that is why you would need to sacrifice the upper deck of the A380 for Hydrogen storage.

Major advancements have been made in light weight Hydrogen storage (Carbon Fiber Tanks) - mainly by Toyota in the last twenty years.

It seems like they are making the tanks out of plastic now https://www.plasticstoday.com/automotiv ... 3150224709

From that article above Japan and Korea are targeting 1.5 Million Fuel Cell Vehicles on the Road by 2030 - that is only 10 years from now - a lot of money will go into safe storage.

From the Hydrogen safety article I linked to above.

"A final concern about hydrogen is that it is an emerging technology that you are probably unfamiliar with. Do we have enough experience to use this technology safely? There are currently over 25,000 hydrogen fuel cell powered forklifts operating around the world in shipping fulfillment centers the likes of Amazon, Walmart, FedEx, and more. These systems have been in service for well over a decade and operate 24/7, having completed ~16 million refuels. Whether you knew it or not, your recent purchases were likely moved by a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle at some point during the routing to you. We just never see and interact with these vehicles. Moreover, these systems are often operated by someone that may or may not have a high school diploma — no Ph.D necessary. Still not enough? There are over 7000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road around the US. Given how much the movies like to bash hydrogen fuel (see Wonder Women, among many, many others), if there was a problem the media would have already informed us. It would be easy pickings given our embedded bias against hydrogen."

Can the A380 be saved by hydrogen? In the strongest terms: no. The modifications described above amount to an all-new airplane. So if you really want a hydrogen-fueled transport aircraft, just design it from scratch. That's to say nothing of the wild impracticality of hydrogen-fueled aircraft, but at least we're being honest that the A380 won't be that aircraft.

Paragraphs.

Cars don't suffer from storage container weight like aircraft do. This is the kind of science you should have learned in 8th grade.

Oh the humanity!

MIflyer12 wrote:

Paragraphs.

Cars don't suffer from storage container weight like aircraft do. This is the kind of science you should have learned in 8th grade.

So what is your solution when the greens demand that we stop burning Carbon in aircraft?

Yes the containers are heavy but the weight can be engineered down. Nothing like this would probably enter commercial service until probably 2035. I would have to guess that that Hydrogen and it's storage would weigh a lot less than Batteries.

Plus you can refill in a reasonable time vs trying to recharge an 8,000NM range aircraft - which even at absurdly high charging rates would take probably 12-24 hours to recharge.

morrisond wrote:

If you put it into production you would have to figure out how to make Hydrogen cheaply - France seems to have lots of cheap Carbon Free nuclear power at night.

Not so much, a lot of it can be stored for later user or is sold to other European countries who have decided not to use nuclear power but are also not so happy to be back to using coal...

And even if the electricity is quite cheap, I am not sure that using it for producing hydrogen on that scale would be wise...

morrisond wrote:

I'm not talking about saving the A380 Program - just saving the tooling so the cross section could be reused in probably a relatively low volume project.

The thread title says otherwise. The A380 was a prestige program just like the Concorde. It's as dead as the Pax 747 is. Let it go.

Naincompetent wrote:

And even if the electricity is quite cheap, I am not sure that using it for producing hydrogen on that scale would be wise...

Not for aviation, which for now will keep depending on fossil fuels. However hydrogen produced on that scale could be used for shipping.

Large ships nowadays are still powered by crude fuel oil, the most polluting fuel there is. This makes shipping contributes for a large part to global warming. But what if you can power a ship with hydrogen? If the whole shipping sector could move from polluting fossil fuels to climate-neutral hydrogen, that would save so much pollution that the aviation sector can easily keep using fossil fuels.

In coastal areas there are natural energy sources available that could be used to create electricity, which is basically all you need to produce hydrogen. Wind power (coastal areas are always windy), tide energy, salinity gradient power, etc. can all be used for that. Ports are located in coastal areas, so the hydrogen doesn't have to travel far in order to reach the ship.

morrisond wrote:

So what is your solution when the greens demand that we stop burning Carbon in aircraft?

Tell them to find a more practical use case for reducing the burning of fossil fuels and hope some day the approaches for the other areas become practicable for air travel.

Their current approach of shaming people for using air travel is bound to fail.

It will end up hurting their movement since people will simply tune them out.

Why would any airline or manufacturer want this?

The whole idea of a double decker is to carry more passengers, not fuel tanks.

morrisond wrote:

I'm not talking about saving the A380 Program - just saving the tooling so the cross section could be reused in probably a relatively low volume project.

Why would you choose a large and yet inefficient model as your starting point? Picking a quad that was designed and engineered to be stretched, but never did is like picking an a318 or a 736 as a model of efficiency.

Antarius wrote:

morrisond wrote:

I'm not talking about saving the A380 Program - just saving the tooling so the cross section could be reused in probably a relatively low volume project.

Why would you choose a large and yet inefficient model as your starting point? Picking a quad that was designed and engineered to be stretched, but never did is like picking an a318 or a 736 as a model of efficiency.

Simply for the cross section - the Volume of Hydrogen demands that storage will probably not be in the wings - the tanks will be be big and round - the Upper level of the A380 could be perfect.

I've never thought about the practical problems faced by a hydrogen powered aircraft, and appreciate this hypothetical Hydrogen A380 thread. Interesting food for thought.

Thanks for posting this. It was an interesting way to stretch my brain this morning.

morrisond wrote:

So what is your solution when the greens demand that we stop burning Carbon in aircraft?

Horses on land and Mayflower in ocean...

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

The testing would be a nice feel-good project for the greenies in the EU. And the A380 would make a good testbed because of the upper deck. And the technology has come a long way since the Russians tested it in the 8ps with a TU204.

robsaw wrote:

The storage density per unit energy of liquid hydrogen vs petroleum fuel is about 1:4.

If storage per volume is key why are we using Li batteries? Hydrogen has 3-4 more energy per kg than fuel.

bennett123 wrote:

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

It is used a rocket fuel. A lighter than air fuel is much safer than anything else.

The only way to save the A380 would have been to convince more airlines that they would need it. Did not happen.

morrisond wrote:

Sunday morning thinking. Something to discuss.

Lots of hurdles too overcome but with the focus on reducing Carbon emissions it struck me that if you sacrifice the A380 upper deck for Hydrogen Storage it could be a great use for the cross section and a possible future for the Airframe.

I know it would take some time to figure out how to use Hydrogen in Aircraft operations but you could easily convert one of the A380 test airframes to Hydrogen and start a test program to figure out the kinks.

It seems like a great EU research project.

If you put it into production you would have to figure out how to make Hydrogen cheaply - France seems to have lots of cheap Carbon Free nuclear power at night.

You would also have to optimize the A380 for hydrogen - which would mean a new wing, new gear.

You need cylinder shapes to store Hydrogen - you can't really put it in the wings. You would store it in Cylinders in the upper deck.

However as Hydrogen is so light (1/3 the weight of Jet Fuel for the same range) you could probably get away with 2 bumped up Ge9x's. They were tested to 135K.

The MTOW would probably be a lot closer to 400T then the 575T existing.

New gear - new optimized 80M wing with folding tips that might go out to 90M extended.

Stretch it to 85m as originally envisioned and go to 11W Y class to pick up passenger capacity on the main deck - that's a 13M stretch.

It could get it back to about A388 Capacity.

The tail could probably get a lot smaller due to the longer moment arm and greatly MTOW weight. Lighter gear for sure.

It could work - it's probably a good idea to preserve the tooling to make fuselages.

Time for the EU to fund some research!

Some people think me a Boeing Fan Boy but in reality I just like shiny new metal. This would be exciting but would probably be 10+ years (5 years for test program and then 5+ years to reengineer A380 to take advantage of hydrogen's properties).

I find it super interesting. You have an almost new platform with almost no commercial value to do hundreds of tests while trying to unveil the so needed future of aviation.

Taking a look to other comments one starts to understand why humanity is doomed. The lack of innovation culture is just impressive. A good open question answered by arrogant noes. The same kind of answers like Galileo got hundreds of years ago. My friends take a look to the innovation learnings of Mr. Bertrand Piccard.

I hope we could at least go for some knowledgeable and constructive criticism by engineers!

capshandler wrote:

morrisond wrote:

Sunday morning thinking. Something to discuss.

Lots of hurdles too overcome but with the focus on reducing Carbon emissions it struck me that if you sacrifice the A380 upper deck for Hydrogen Storage it could be a great use for the cross section and a possible future for the Airframe.

I know it would take some time to figure out how to use Hydrogen in Aircraft operations but you could easily convert one of the A380 test airframes to Hydrogen and start a test program to figure out the kinks.

It seems like a great EU research project.

If you put it into production you would have to figure out how to make Hydrogen cheaply - France seems to have lots of cheap Carbon Free nuclear power at night.

You would also have to optimize the A380 for hydrogen - which would mean a new wing, new gear.

You need cylinder shapes to store Hydrogen - you can't really put it in the wings. You would store it in Cylinders in the upper deck.

However as Hydrogen is so light (1/3 the weight of Jet Fuel for the same range) you could probably get away with 2 bumped up Ge9x's. They were tested to 135K.

The MTOW would probably be a lot closer to 400T then the 575T existing.

New gear - new optimized 80M wing with folding tips that might go out to 90M extended.

Stretch it to 85m as originally envisioned and go to 11W Y class to pick up passenger capacity on the main deck - that's a 13M stretch.

It could get it back to about A388 Capacity.

The tail could probably get a lot smaller due to the longer moment arm and greatly MTOW weight. Lighter gear for sure.

It could work - it's probably a good idea to preserve the tooling to make fuselages.

Time for the EU to fund some research!

Some people think me a Boeing Fan Boy but in reality I just like shiny new metal. This would be exciting but would probably be 10+ years (5 years for test program and then 5+ years to reengineer A380 to take advantage of hydrogen's properties).

I find it super interesting. You have an almost new platform with almost no commercial value to do hundreds of tests while trying to unveil the so needed future of aviation.

Taking a look to other comments one starts to understand why humanity is doomed. The lack of innovation culture is just impressive. A good open question answered by arrogant noes. The same kind of answers like Galileo got hundreds of years ago. My friends take a look to the innovation learnings of Mr. Bertrand Piccard.

I hope we could at least go for some knowledgeable and constructive criticism by engineers!

The issue is, it doesnt read as an open question. It reads as yet another save-the-a380 post, of which we get 2 a week.

A hydrogen aircraft discussion that led to potentially using an a380 due to space may have landed better as opposed to opening with, what appears at first glance, to be desperate straw grasping to save the whale. Now, given the way the OP has responded, I dont think that this was their intent, but I think this is the perception that got the reaction.

Personally, I think the a380 is far too heavy and inefficient for this project a a359ULR or 78J may be a better test bed.

TWA772LR wrote:

The testing would be a nice feel-good project for the greenies in the EU. And the A380 would make a good testbed because of the upper deck. And the technology has come a long way since the Russians tested it in the 8ps with a TU204.

We are long past “feel good” projects. There will be changes forced on all of us eventually. We have made great strides in fuel efficiency in cars, as well as in aircraft, but this constant whining about what one side of the political spectrum is imposing on the other is pointless. We just need to get to work, and figure it out. That would include funding research that yields the technologies we need. Those advocating for no regulatory measures are no more helpful than the “flight shamers.” You don’t need much insight to see that the world will not survive on our current trajectory. Too many people consuming too much. We either simplify, advance our technology, or drive ourselves off a cliff. Hint: “bringing back” coal, which the market has shunned, is not going to be the key to our future. If that is the thinking, let’s try steam power. There must be some poor steam fitters out of work somewhere.

Nothing is going to save your beloved A380. Airlines cannot make money flying the A380. Airbus has lost billions producing the A380. Nobody wants the A380. Give up on it already. It’s dead.

Antarius wrote:

Personally, I think the a380 is far too heavy and inefficient for this project a a359ULR or 78J may be a better test bed.

Depends where you are in the development cycle, no?

I'd fear that a bigger aircraft would have more weight/momentum/fuel than a smaller one so if things went poorly it would create more damage.

Yet you want something bigger to be the scale needed to prove airline service is viable.

Maybe an old A300 which has lots of volume for its weight?

Or step down to an A320 family member or bizjet?

I'm not a big believer in the hydrogen economy, as hydrogen is impractical, and producing it from electricity isn't very efficient. Today when you need hydrogen, you get hydrogen made from natural gas.

I think we can reduce our fossil fuel usage drastically while keeping aircraft burning jet fuel, however in the efforts made to replace fossil fuels in other areas, it's possible replacing jet fuel will also make sense, well, I would still expect it to be jet fuel, just not coming from oil. In fact if you manage to get cheap, abundant hydrogen, then you can make jet fuel with it and CO2.

Of course with opinion and politics, it might work out differently. For example here in France with the yellow vests movement, it was pointed out that gas/diesel was taxed far more than jet fuel. Meaning "rich people" who fly a lot are taxed little, while the man of the street needing to drive a lot to go to work, pays lots of tax.

In the future when CO2 emissions are really tackled, I could see air travel being much more vilified than it is now.

We need the petroleum engineers to come up with a boosted liquid fuel, even 20% more energy per pound would have amazing results, but at the same time keep it with similar vapor and flash points. Gasoline has a specific energy of 12.7 kWh/kg while Jet A is 11.95 kWh so 6% more but with a high hazard.

Getting cryogenic liquids or compressed gasses of sufficient mass into an airplane would cause all kinds of issues in a crash. Lots to study

bennett123 wrote:

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

Let me guess....oh, yeah:

morrisond wrote:

...
So what is your solution when the greens demand that we stop burning Carbon in aircraft?
...

Stay at home.

Seabear wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

Let me guess....oh, yeah:

You need to read this article to see how safe Hydrogen is - it seems like it's actually quite good. https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2017/03/17/so- ... ogen-fuel/

All I'm saying is that you might want to save the tooling for the A380 nose and cross section.

It would be perfect for an Hydrogen powered aircraft as you need a big space to carry the needed volume - the full length upper deck would work great.

A non double decker won't really work - no where to put the tanks as you can't really store it in the wings - unless you sacrifice the belly volume.

What would be tbe effect of having an aircraft that is top-heavy? Once airborne, where do you count the fulcrum for determining stability?

I have never understood why people think hydrogen is an ecologically advantageous fuel. Making it is always energy intensive. So is storing and transporting it. Unless you have a surplus of electricity that can't be put to a better use and your use of hydrogen is nearby, I just don't see the point. Of course, like most electric cars these days, it is a fine way to separate the place of use from the place where the pollution is generated. I own a Tesla but I understand my electricity is mostly fossil fuel generated.

Hydrogen and electricity are both ways of moving energy. And hydrogen is a way of storing it.

I think hydrogen may well be the future for aircraft (and indeed ships and long distance trains) where the weight issues and charging times of batteries are more of a problem.

Compared to jet fuel, hydrogen would be a lot lighter, but take up more room and need specialised storage, not just in gaps in the wing.

But it would have to be a new design to take advantage of these features.

Possibly something like the KLM V-Wing design would work better

morrisond wrote:

Seabear wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

Let me guess....oh, yeah:

You need to read this article to see how safe Hydrogen is - it seems like it's actually quite good. https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2017/03/17/so- ... ogen-fuel/

All I'm saying is that you might want to save the tooling for the A380 nose and cross section.

It would be perfect for an Hydrogen powered aircraft as you need a big space to carry the needed volume - the full length upper deck would work great.

A non double decker won't really work - no where to put the tanks as you can't really store it in the wings - unless you sacrifice the belly volume.

You sure are lusting over the A380. It failed. It will never see 1000 orders. Twins are the future. Let it go man.

One detail: hydrogen costs over almost 20 times more than jet fuel.

Yes, yes, improvements in infrastructure and economy of scale can bring that down, but enough to become competitive with oil based fuels? I doubt it.

capshandler wrote:

morrisond wrote:

Sunday morning thinking. Something to discuss.

Lots of hurdles too overcome but with the focus on reducing Carbon emissions it struck me that if you sacrifice the A380 upper deck for Hydrogen Storage it could be a great use for the cross section and a possible future for the Airframe.

I know it would take some time to figure out how to use Hydrogen in Aircraft operations but you could easily convert one of the A380 test airframes to Hydrogen and start a test program to figure out the kinks.

It seems like a great EU research project.

If you put it into production you would have to figure out how to make Hydrogen cheaply - France seems to have lots of cheap Carbon Free nuclear power at night.

You would also have to optimize the A380 for hydrogen - which would mean a new wing, new gear.

You need cylinder shapes to store Hydrogen - you can't really put it in the wings. You would store it in Cylinders in the upper deck.

However as Hydrogen is so light (1/3 the weight of Jet Fuel for the same range) you could probably get away with 2 bumped up Ge9x's. They were tested to 135K.

The MTOW would probably be a lot closer to 400T then the 575T existing.

New gear - new optimized 80M wing with folding tips that might go out to 90M extended.

Stretch it to 85m as originally envisioned and go to 11W Y class to pick up passenger capacity on the main deck - that's a 13M stretch.

It could get it back to about A388 Capacity.

The tail could probably get a lot smaller due to the longer moment arm and greatly MTOW weight. Lighter gear for sure.

It could work - it's probably a good idea to preserve the tooling to make fuselages.

Time for the EU to fund some research!

Some people think me a Boeing Fan Boy but in reality I just like shiny new metal. This would be exciting but would probably be 10+ years (5 years for test program and then 5+ years to reengineer A380 to take advantage of hydrogen's properties).

I find it super interesting. You have an almost new platform with almost no commercial value to do hundreds of tests while trying to unveil the so needed future of aviation.

Taking a look to other comments one starts to understand why humanity is doomed. The lack of innovation culture is just impressive. A good open question answered by arrogant noes. The same kind of answers like Galileo got hundreds of years ago. My friends take a look to the innovation learnings of Mr. Bertrand Piccard.

I hope we could at least go for some knowledgeable and constructive criticism by engineers!

Usually we try to save the dramatics for DTW threads.

Why do we need the A380 to be the test bed? There are probably 50 aircraft on the market that could be tested for such a thing. You scale up projects like this, not down.

Innovation isn’t dead, it’s the fact that we are dealing with advanced materials these days. They need to be tested and understood. It was a lot easier 60 years ago. And a hell of a lot simpler

Hydrogen is 33 kWh/kg, jet fuel is 12 so almost 3x the energy per pound. But unless it is liquid it would need to be stored at high pressures. For example H stored at 70F and 1,450 PSI weight is only 0.5 lb/cf, while jet fuel is 50 lb/cf. The volume of 20 US tons of Jet fuel is 800 CF. The volume of 20 US tons of Hydrogen is 80,000 CF. A 77F has a cargo volume is 5,330 CF, so using the entire volume of the 77F it could carry 10,660 lb of compressed hydrogen. This would take a pressure vessel 100' long and 15' in diameter with 2.5" thick high strength steel. It only weighs 473,000 lb, about 2/3 of the 77F MTOW. Well the 77F could take off with this tank, the 5 tons of fuel, and its OEW.

The cryogenic tank for liquid hydrogen would fit but storing liquid at -423F is a bit tricky, its weight liquid is 4.4 lb per cubic foot So even the Saturn V rocket uses RP-1 (a very good jet fuel) verses liquid hydrogen in its 1st stage, but LH in the 2nd and 3rd stage. If it doesn't make sense in a rocket, it does not make sense in an airplane.

sciing wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

It is used a rocket fuel. A lighter than air fuel is much safer than anything else.

That's true - there's never been a rocket accident involving hydrogen fuel ignition! /facepalm

Why not fill it with helium instead and then we can all at least crack each other up when we try to talk.

spacecadet wrote:

sciing wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

It is used a rocket fuel. A lighter than air fuel is much safer than anything else.

That's true - there's never been a rocket accident involving hydrogen fuel ignition! /facepalm.

Safer than other fuels! I thought that competence level in this forum is that high enough not just on CNN level.
There were never aircraft incidents involving kerosin vapor ignition?
Maybe you may talk the topic seriously?
Otherwise please excuse that I will ignore your nonsense!

sciing wrote:

spacecadet wrote:

sciing wrote:

It is used a rocket fuel. A lighter than air fuel is much safer than anything else.

That's true - there's never been a rocket accident involving hydrogen fuel ignition! /facepalm.

Safer than other fuels! I thought that competence level in this forum is that high enough not just on CNN level.
There were never aircraft incidents involving kerosin vapor ignition?
Maybe you may talk the topic seriously?
Otherwise please excuse that I will ignore your nonsense!

Combustible gases tend to have very nasty explosions. Liquid Hydrogen doesn't burn well, but once gaseous it is brutal.

Natural Gas Pipeline explosion: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kentucky-d ... 019-08-01/

Hindenberg: 776 ft (237 m) long and carry 5,000,000 cu ft (140,000 m3) of hydrogen gas went up in flames in 37 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgWHbpMVQ1U

Columbia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfnvFnzs91s

This is a great idea, only problem is that we live in capitalism and there is something that called “return of investment”. So yes in theory idea is perfect, in practice means that we would need to change everything just for 1,5 or 2 percent of green house gases emitted on the planet. 1.5 or 2 of green house gases represent long haul aviation and changing everything just for 2 percent is not economically viable. On the other hand, could something like this be done in 10 to 15 years, my answer is yes but with huge government help. So everything taken into account, there is 98% of things that cloud be changed differently and cheaper than this in order to lower greenhouse emissions. One but more viable idea could be a “palm oil”. In Africa there is perfect climate with a lot of unused land that is not under rainforest so palm oil could be good for the planet and African economy.

sciing wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

Storing Hydrogen in a passenger aircraft with a considerable number of electrical systems.

What could go wrong with that.

It is used a rocket fuel. A lighter than air fuel is much safer than anything else.

Rockets have teams of people preparing for days on end for every launch. Space-X decided that hydrogen wasn't worth the hassle for the benefit.

How about focusing on something somewhat realistic like a viable biofuel for aircraft. All of the technology for that is on the ground.

jetblueguy22 wrote:

capshandler wrote:

morrisond wrote:

Sunday morning thinking. Something to discuss.

Lots of hurdles too overcome but with the focus on reducing Carbon emissions it struck me that if you sacrifice the A380 upper deck for Hydrogen Storage it could be a great use for the cross section and a possible future for the Airframe.

I know it would take some time to figure out how to use Hydrogen in Aircraft operations but you could easily convert one of the A380 test airframes to Hydrogen and start a test program to figure out the kinks.

It seems like a great EU research project.

If you put it into production you would have to figure out how to make Hydrogen cheaply - France seems to have lots of cheap Carbon Free nuclear power at night.

You would also have to optimize the A380 for hydrogen - which would mean a new wing, new gear.

You need cylinder shapes to store Hydrogen - you can't really put it in the wings. You would store it in Cylinders in the upper deck.

However as Hydrogen is so light (1/3 the weight of Jet Fuel for the same range) you could probably get away with 2 bumped up Ge9x's. They were tested to 135K.

The MTOW would probably be a lot closer to 400T then the 575T existing.

New gear - new optimized 80M wing with folding tips that might go out to 90M extended.

Stretch it to 85m as originally envisioned and go to 11W Y class to pick up passenger capacity on the main deck - that's a 13M stretch.

It could get it back to about A388 Capacity.

The tail could probably get a lot smaller due to the longer moment arm and greatly MTOW weight. Lighter gear for sure.

It could work - it's probably a good idea to preserve the tooling to make fuselages.

Time for the EU to fund some research!

Some people think me a Boeing Fan Boy but in reality I just like shiny new metal. This would be exciting but would probably be 10+ years (5 years for test program and then 5+ years to reengineer A380 to take advantage of hydrogen's properties).

I find it super interesting. You have an almost new platform with almost no commercial value to do hundreds of tests while trying to unveil the so needed future of aviation.

Taking a look to other comments one starts to understand why humanity is doomed. The lack of innovation culture is just impressive. A good open question answered by arrogant noes. The same kind of answers like Galileo got hundreds of years ago. My friends take a look to the innovation learnings of Mr. Bertrand Piccard.

I hope we could at least go for some knowledgeable and constructive criticism by engineers!

Usually we try to save the dramatics for DTW threads.

Why do we need the A380 to be the test bed? There are probably 50 aircraft on the market that could be tested for such a thing. You scale up projects like this, not down.

Innovation isn’t dead, it’s the fact that we are dealing with advanced materials these days. They need to be tested and understood. It was a lot easier 60 years ago. And a hell of a lot simpler

I was talking about the attitude, nothing else.

If you’re an expert and propose an interesting alternative that leads to dropping the OP’s proposal, great! Everybody will learn in a constructive and interesting way. But no collaborative work is possible when greated by arrogance and ignorance (not saying is your case).

Cheers

Its an interesting academic exercise, nothing wrong with that. As a test bed for a Cryoplane, an A380 is quite ideal due to the large internal fuselage volume and 4 engines for safety.

For an actual passenger carrying solution assuming technology matured enough? Perhaps as a very loose starting point, but not much more.


A few points

>> Hydrogen is safer than kerosene for aviation. That is quite well understood within the industry. The Hindenburg disaster is pointed to by those who simply haven't read up on the subject.
>> H2 tanks are getting lighter and less prone to embrittlement. But they are still much heavier than JetA tanks.
>> There has been work done by Airbus (and I think Boeing too) on Hydrogen fuel cells replacing the APU on single-aisle and performing a number of other functions alongside that - such as potable water and fuel tank inerting. Nothing has come of it apart from test beds yet.
>> The DLR had the Cryoplane concept based on an old Dornier in the late 90s. Never flew to my knowledge.
>> Density is the big issue as far as primary power would be concerned. There is more hydrogen in a litre of liquid water than there is in a litre of liquid hydrogen!
>> Generation of hydrogen is more efficiently done by an enzyme/bacteria augmented process than hydrolysis (I think the best versions still use some electricity, but much less than conventional hydrolysis).
>> A turbofan will (more or less) happily burn H2 instead of JetA. Obviously details within the injectors and combustor have to change, but its not a fundamental mismatch.

JayinKitsap wrote:

Hydrogen is 33 kWh/kg, jet fuel is 12 so almost 3x the energy per pound. But unless it is liquid it would need to be stored at high pressures. For example H stored at 70F and 1,450 PSI weight is only 0.5 lb/cf, while jet fuel is 50 lb/cf. The volume of 20 US tons of Jet fuel is 800 CF. The volume of 20 US tons of Hydrogen is 80,000 CF. A 77F has a cargo volume is 5,330 CF, so using the entire volume of the 77F it could carry 10,660 lb of compressed hydrogen. This would take a pressure vessel 100' long and 15' in diameter with 2.5" thick high strength steel. It only weighs 473,000 lb, about 2/3 of the 77F MTOW. Well the 77F could take off with this tank, the 5 tons of fuel, and its OEW.

The cryogenic tank for liquid hydrogen would fit but storing liquid at -423F is a bit tricky, its weight liquid is 4.4 lb per cubic foot So even the Saturn V rocket uses RP-1 (a very good jet fuel) verses liquid hydrogen in its 1st stage, but LH in the 2nd and 3rd stage. If it doesn't make sense in a rocket, it does not make sense in an airplane.

It seems like the space shuttle's Hydrogen tank (albeit liquid) was only about 50,000 lbs to hold 226,000 pounds. I don't think it was built with 2.5" thick steel. With an energy density equivalent of about 3:1 that seems about the amount of fuel you would need for an A380 (1/3 of it's stated capacity but you would actually need less as an Hydrogen A380 would probably be 2/3 the weight of an A388).

"The Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds empty. Its external tank weighed 78,100 pounds empty and its two solid rocket boosters weighed 185,000 pounds empty each. Each solid rocket booster held 1.1 million pounds of fuel. The external tank held 143,000 gallons of liquid oxygen (1,359,000 pounds) and 383,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen (226,000 pounds). The fuel weighed almost 20 times more than the Shuttle. At launch, the Shuttle, external tank, solid rocket boosters and all the fuel combined had a total weight of 4.4 million pounds. The Shuttle could also carry a 65,000 payload."

There have also been major advances in Hydrogen storage with Carbon Fiber being used by Toyota and now even advanced plastics

https://www.materialstoday.com/composit ... ge-tanks-/

And I'll post the Washington State University on Hydrogen safety as well as no one seems to be reading it.

https://hydrogen.wsu.edu/2017/03/17/so- ... ogen-fuel/

"So how dangerous is hydrogen fuel? In many situations where a vehicle is located outdoors hydrogen is safer than conventional liquid fuels or natural gas. This in no way implies that hydrogen is not dangerous — there are many situations where hydrogen, like any other fuel or energy storage device, can cause an accident. As one life-long hydrogen expert said to me once, “Hydrogen is no better, nor worse, than any other fuel. You just have to know the rules for working with hydrogen.” Hence our work and mission."