GKN Aerospace has completed the preliminary design of the hydrogen fuel cell powertrain it is developing under the UK-funded H2GEAR programme and is increasingly confident that the efficiency gains it is building into the system will allow it to scale to power a 96-seat aircraft – or one even larger.
Disclosing the progress of the project on 16 June, GKN Aerospace chief technology officer Russ Dunn said that it has now “defined the architecture for a number of different aircraft”.
This includes 19-, 48- and 96-seat models, he says, “and what we are actually seeing is that the technology we are developing scales very well – it actually becomes more attractive as you get larger and larger.”
Under the H2GEAR programme GKN intends to deliver to ground test by 2025 a 1MW-class liquid hydrogen fuel cell powertrain, including the electric motor.
However, as part of the…