Large Scale Lightweight Liquid Hydrogen Integral Storage Solutions

Closed

Programme Category

EU Competitive Programmes

Programme Name

EuroHPC JOINT UNDERTAKING

Programme Description

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (hereinafter “EuroHPC JU”), will contribute to the ambition of value creation in the Union with the overall mission to develop, deploy, extend and maintain in the Union an integrated world class supercomputing and quantum computing infrastructure and to develop and support a highly competitive and innovative High Performance Computing (HPC) ecosystem, extreme scale, power-efficient and highly resilient HPC and data technologies.

Programme Details

Identifier Code

HORIZON-JU-CLEAN-AVIATION-2022-01-HPA-03

Call

Large Scale Lightweight Liquid Hydrogen Integral Storage Solutions

Summary

Development and Ground Test of Large Scale Ultra lightweight LH2 Integral Tanks of ~150kg LH2 capacity with a gravimetric index of 35% @TRL4 or higher by end of Phase 1, aiming at large integral tanks (600kg H2, gravimetric index >45%) for Regional and SMR applications. 

Detailed Call Description

Liquid hydrogen storage in aircraft implies challenges in several disciplines due to:

  • exceptionally low energy content per unit of volume. As an example, an integral fuselage tank for equivalent energy could mean increasing fuselage length as much as 10 m for current single aisle aircraft, and over 20m for wide bodies.
  • the need to adapt LH2 storage solutions for a/c environment

The following performance targets are provided:

  •  Gravimetric index of H2 selected storage solutions compared to current fuels (JET A-1, SAF; ultimate goal) and current ground/road transport H2 indexes (SoA); as a reference target is proposed 35% for a 150 kg LH2 tank.
    • Tank LH2 storage capacity > 150 kg LH2, scalable to a target of 600kg LH2 capacity by 2025.
    • Life Cycle Cost Analysis including KPIs targeting or dealing with:
    • Production, installation and assembly costs
    • Low maintenance impact: at all check types (A, B, C…)
    • End of life: durability, recyclability/overhaul and overall waste generation (i.e. %
      recovered material in weight, exergy losses during recycling)
    • Target between 50.000 and 100.000 hours of expected service life, aligned with a/c expected life
  • Refueling conditions: making the refueling operations compatible with 45 min turnaround
    times.
  • Boil-off < 2% in 24 hours (24 h defined as dormancy time reference)

Call Total Budget

€10 million

Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan

70%

Thematic Categories

  • Research, Technological Development and Innovation

Eligibility for Participation

  • Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
  • Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Eligibility For Participation Notes

Given the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the involvement of Belarus, legal entities established in Russia, Belarus or in any occupied territory of Ukraine are not eligible to participate in any capacity.

Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis for justified reasons, such as for humanitarian purposes, civil society support or people-to-people contacts.

Applicants should identify and include the additional expertise needed to complement the traditional aeronautical domain, in order to effectively address the incorporation of new/disruptive technologies. Where appropriate, the consortium should include newcomers to the field of aeronautics and in particular SMEs, start-ups and/or knowledge centres that can bring disruptive innovation to the project as proposed.

Call Opening Date

12/04/2022

Call Closing Date

23/06/2022

EU Contact Point

EuroHPC JU

info@eurohpc-ju.europa.eu

(Publish Date: 10/05/2022-for internal use only)