Engineers at GKN Aerospace have successfully achieved a major milestone delivering a ground-based demonstrator of a liquid hydrogen aircraft fuel system. The demonstrator was designed, built, and tested in collaboration with Filton Systems Engineering under the UK-funded Safe Flight project.
The goal of the project was to investigate the feasibility of using a liquid hydrogen fuel source to increase the endurance of a search and rescue uncrewed aerial system (UAS) concept. The project enabled GKN to understand and address many of the safety concerns raised by the introduction of such a novel fuel. Integrated fuel tank design and distribution solutions were developed, including vaporization and conditioning of the liquid hydrogen.
The team verified the performance of the fuel system by coupling it with a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack, representative of the type that…
GKN Aerospace tests liquid hydrogen aircraft fuel system demonstrator
