Fuel cell-powered aircraft have been of long-term interest to the aviation community because of their potential for improved performance and environmental compatibility. Only recently have improvements in the technological readiness of fuel cell power plants enabled the first aviation applications. Based on the results of conceptual design studies and a few technology demonstration projects, a widespread understanding of the importance of fuel cell power plants for near-term and future aviation applications has emerged. In the near term, fuel cells can exhibit compelling performance advantages in applications such as auxiliary power generation and propulsive power generation for small-scale aircraft and. | Aviation Fuel Cells TH Bradley Colorado State University Fort Collins CO USA BA Moffitt D Mavris and DE Parekh Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta GA USA 2009 Elsevier . All rights reserved. Introduction Fuel cell-powered aircraft have been of long-term interest to the aviation community because of their potential for improved performance and environmental compatibility. Only recently have improvements in the technological readiness of fuel cell power plants enabled the first aviation applications. Based on the results of conceptual design studies and a few technology demonstration projects a widespread understanding of the importance of fuel cell power plants for near-term and future aviation applications has emerged. In the near term fuel cells can exhibit compelling performance advantages in applications such as auxiliary power generation and propulsive power generation for small-scale aircraft and long-endurance aircraft. General Design Metrics for Aviation Fuel Cell Power Plants To date the designers and developers of fuel cell power plants have been primarily responsive to the needs of the automotive and stationary power generation applications. To maximize the performance of fuel cell-powered aircraft fuel cell power plants will have to be designed and built to meet aviation-specific design criteria. These may involve significant departures from conventional automotive or stationary fuel cell design. For aviation some primary aircraft-level performance metrics are range endurance rate of climb and maximum speed. These aircraft design requirements can be translated into first-order requirements for the fuel cell system by analyzing Newton s laws for an aircraft in steady level flight. A simplified ranges equation for unconventional power plants can be derived where aircraft weight is constant ds T HI where s is the range E the propulsive energy and T the thrust. During steady level flight at small angles of attack T D and L mg where D is the drag and L
