COmposite COnformal LIquid H2 Tank (COCOLIH2T)

氢(H2)等替代燃料被视为航空零排放未来的核心角色，但氢的渗透水平将在很大程度上取决于科技突破，以克服氢动力飞机带来的挑战。未来飞机上安全高效的氢气储存是氢气技术的基本推动因素，将是该行业有史以来面临的最复杂的航空航天工程挑战之一。对现有最先进解决方案的改进包括更好地利用可用燃料存储空间、充分的绝缘技术以将热泄漏降至最低、持续的安全操作以及通过热固性或热塑性复合材料等低重量材料减轻重量，同时解决这些材料的固有挑战(渗透性、微裂纹、热疲劳)。以柯林斯航空航天公司为首的COCOLIH2 T财团正在提出一个颠覆性的概念，专注于减少坦克在飞机内的重量和体积的影响，同时确保系统安全。COCOLIH2T不仅将为航空行业开发安全的复合真空绝缘液化氢储罐，而且雄心勃勃，通过采用新的制造技术设计和制造保形储罐，使生产能耗减少60%以上，生产时间至少减少50%，从而显著降低制造成本。此外，拟议的坦克结构基于多材料热塑性复合材料概念，旨在促进飞机结构集成，以支持与传统坦克配置相比的整体系统重量减轻。COCOLIH2T要解决的关键挑战是设计出一种可行且经济实惠的共形变截面箱形储罐，同时尽可能地将汽化泄漏降至最低。到2025年，COCOLIH2 T的整个系统将在TRL4上进行演示。

Alternative fuels such as hydrogen (H2) are seen as playing a central role in a zero-emission future for aviation, but the level of penetration for H2 will depend heavily on scientific and technological breakthroughs to overcome the challenges posed by H2 powered aircraft. The safe and efficient storage of H2 on-board future aircraft is the essential enabler of H2 technologies and will be one of the most complex aerospace engineering challenges that the industry has ever faced. Improvements to existing state-of-the-art solutions includes a better utilization of the available space for fuel storage, adequate insulation techniques to minimize heat leak, continued safe operations, and a weight reduction through low-weight materials, such as thermoset or thermoplastic composites, all while addressing those materials’ inherent challenges (permeability, microcracking, thermal fatigue). COCOLIH2T consortium led by Collins Aerospace is proposing a disruptive concept focused on reducing the impact of the tank’s weight and volume within an aircraft, while ensuring system safety. COCOLIH2T will not only develop a safe composite and vacuum insulated LH2 tank for the aviation sector but has the ambition to go beyond by designing and manufacturing a conformal tank through novel fabrication technologies enabling a reduction of more than 60% in production energy consumption, at least 50% in production time leading to significantly lower manufacturing costs. Additionally, the proposed structure of the tank, based on a multi-material thermoplastic composite concept, is intended to facilitate aircraft structural integration to support overall system weight reduction compared with conventional tank configurations. The key challenge that COCOLIH2T will tackle is the generation of a feasible and affordable design of a conformal variable section box-shape tank while minimizing the boil-off leakages wherever possible. COCOLIH2T’s overall system will be demonstrated at TRL4 by 2025.