All electric intercity-aircraft design based on fuel cell energy system

GIULIO ROMEO; ENRICO CESTINO; FABIO BORELLO; CORREA, GABRIEL

CEAS Aeronautical Journal

Springer

Año: 2021

1869-5582

A possible way to approach an environmentally friendly design is to favour electric-based devices against their conventional counterparts in order to obtain All-Electric aircrafts and to power them by greener energy sources as hydrogen fuel cell systems. In this paper, a preliminary design was carried out within the ENFICA-FC program in designing an aircraft for 10-15 passengers in the intercity sector that is able to connect cities through flights while totally zero emission. The airplane works on hydrogen, taking advantage of the ?fuel cell? technology available in short/middle term. The aim of using zero emission propellers in the future to equip aircraft for 10-15 passengers in the intercity sector should be a real prospective and shall be shown in the work.The main objective of the ENFICA-FC project is to develop and to validate the use of a fuel-cell based power system for propulsion of an all-electric aircraft. The paper deals with the setting up and test flights of a fuel cell general aviation aircraft fuelled by hydrogen. The all-electrical power system was successfully tested during 6 experimental flights. Take-off and climbing was obtained at power of 35 kW. Level flight was attained at 150 km/h by mean of only a fuel cell power setting. 2.5 hours of effective flight were obtained during flight tests for a total path of 237 km. A high speed of 135 km/h and an endurance of 39 min was established during flights conducted for the FAI Sporting Code Category C.