Cryogenic Hydrogen Fuel Systems
At our recent Aerospace Innovation Showcase: Cryogenic Hydrogen Fuel Systems, we joined forces with the High-Value Manufacturing Catapult Centres and brought together close to ninety experts from aerospace and adjacent sectors to delve deeper into the aerospace-specific requirements and opportunities for collaboration in developing these fuel systems.
If you didn’t have a chance to join us, we’re pleased to share a summary of the event, courtesy of our scribe Jack Ambrose. You can also download the PDF version here.
The technology scope of the event:
“We’re here to turbocharge innovation in aerospace.” Paul Adams, ATI’s Chief Innovation Officer, kicked off our Aerospace Innovation Showcase on Cryogenic Hydrogen Fuel Systems at the National Composites Centre (NCC), alongside Jo Dally, Chief Business Officer, NCC.
Our first panel discussed technical requirements for the classic aerospace trifecta of low weight, high reliability and maintainability (and certifiability!), which means we need innovation when considering these technologies as they are being used in other sectors. Working with design objectives rather than requirements, as a sector, we need to bring companies with capabilities in the new technologies together with companies with knowledge about ways of working of aerospace.
Our second panel of the day looked at the market opportunity, stating the industry’s commitment to hydrogen technologies from market and values perspectives to decarbonise the sector in both the short term through retrofitting and the mid-term with new platforms.
We then had an opportunity to listen to nine innovative companies pitching their relevant technologies and capabilities for meeting some of the outlined challenges before several collaborative workshops helped to outline the present capabilities and requirements of those in the room.
We closed the day with a keynote delivered by NASA’s Adam Swanger on their Cryogenic Test Laboratory, who shared critical learnings from space on testing with and using cryogenic hydrogen fuel systems in practice.
We’d like to thank all of the organisers, presenters and attendees for their engagement with this critical topic. We hope that many new connections have been formed and we look forward to seeing them take action towards decarbonising our sector.