Thermal modelling for Clean Sky Aircraft

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As the aviation industry is increasingly under pressure to reduce it's dependence on fossil fuels, new energy storage and conversion pathways are being explored. Battery-electric, hydrogen-electric (fuel cell) and hydrogen combustion all will have to deal with new thermal management challenges. The thermal management system is key in assessing weight and viability of fuel cell architectures. The project will bring together the engineering top-level requirements of aviation and a fluid dynamic understanding of the trade-offs between pressure drop and heat transfer. Heat exchangers in aircraft are pressure drop constrained, the packaging and integration of frontal area is key to determining weight and drag. Furthermore the critical sizing point is at take-off on a hot day, requiring capability to model transient response and different cruise thermal management strategies for optimal design. Research will include investigating fundamental heat transfer and pressure drop profiles such as the flat plate and tubes in cross flow, and relating these to the engineering equivalents of full heat exchangers. A general methodology on how to model weight of thermal management components will be developed, as well as a tool to estimate thermal cycles across a single flight and the lifetime of an aircraft. Particular care will be taken to attempt and include high fidelity effects that may be critical to designs such as thermal expansion and hydrogen embrittlement. The overall goal will be able to assess and question the key assumptions of optimistic aircraft concepts and evaluate where erroneous thermal assumptions could be critical.