GKN Aerospace, a British multinational automotive and aerospace components business has announced the successful milestone delivery of the first ground-based demonstrator of a liquid hydrogen aircraft fuel system. The first-of-its-kind demonstrator was designed, built and tested by GKN Aerospace in collaboration with Filton Systems Engineering, under the Innovate UK-funded Safe Flight project. The company’s aim with 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 highly ambitious project has enabled GKN to understand and address a high number of 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 performance of the fuel system was verified by coupling it with a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack, representative of the type that could be installed on a future zero-emission aircraft.