Investigating the use of alternative fuel pumps designs for cleaner aviation

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With the continuing drive towards cleaner aviation in recent years, there have been active investigations into alternatives to traditional aviation fuel. Liquid hydrogen is one of the leading candidates as identified by a recent (March 2022) report from the Aerospace Technologies. Fuel pumps have traditionally used fuel-lubricated bearings including plain bearings and rolling-element bearings. These bearings face very specific challenges with liquid hydrogen due to the very low temperatures, low viscosity, low density, the tendency to cause brittleness of the bearing materials and the possible chemical effects that might exist. This PhD project sets out to investigate the selection and engineering design of bearings suitable for use in liquid hydrogen pumps. Such pumps have been used in rockets for decades but the rocket applications require an active service life measured only in minutes. This work will explore both the customisation of conventional bearing designs and the development of novel bearing designs suitable for service within a fuel pump that could operate at the required loads and rotational speeds whilst also having a long operational life spaces (>10,000 hours). It is expected that the study will embrace traditional fluid bearing designs (including plain journal bearings) as well as (electro- )magnetic bearings and it may also consider the possible exploitation of controllable unbalanced magnetic pull within an electrical machine to assist in managing bearing transverse loads.