Hydrogen Fuel System Modelling for Conceptual Aircraft Performance Analysis
Coupling the MATLAB Initiator with KBE-Based Geometry Modelling for Automated Integration, Routing, and Sizing
A.L.B. De Pauw (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
G. la Rocca – Mentor (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
M.F.M. Hoogreef – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
P. Proesmans – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
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Abstract
Liquid Hydrogen aircraft will be key in ensuring air travel can remain both accessible and environmentally responsible, but early design tools still use fuel-system performance estimates that are largely insensitive to varying aircraft and fuel system configurations. This thesis develops a workflow coupling the MATLAB Initiator to a ParaPy KBE model to automatically generate LH2 fuel-supply architectures, position components, route cryogenic fuel lines, and size fuel lines, insulation and pumps via constrained optimization with multi-phase flow analysis. Demonstrated on the Initiator-derived A320neo and ATR72 hydrogen concepts. For the A320neo, optimized total fuel-system masses are about 20–26% lower than the Initiator estimates. For the ATR72, masses are around 30–50% higher, potentially driving infeasibility and motivating further research into design of the remaining fuel subsystems, while showing mass does not necessarily scale down with tank volume as assumed by the Initiator, highlighting the importance of physics-based estimation in early design.
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File under embargo until 12-03-2028