Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TheMa4HERA (Thermal Management for the Hybrid Electric Regional Aircraft)
Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-06-30
The high-level objective of the project is to demonstrate the dissipation of required additional heat in the order of 20 to 50 kW for systems and 300 to 1000 kW for power storage and generation in batteries, the APU and fuel cells in future commercial aircraft. To give an order of magnitude for today’s aircraft falling under certification requirements of CS25/FAR25: 100 passengers generate approximately 10kW of heat in the cabin. Electrical appliances, in-flight entertainment, light, galleys, etc. may add another 10kW to the cabin. The avionics system generates approx. 15 kW of heat. In total, today’s aircraft thus produces an order of 35-50 kW heat.
The project will mature major technology bricks for the thermal management to TRL5. The aircraft platform is considered for a seating capacity up to 100 passengers (minimum 50) with a range of 400-1000 Kms and Entry Into Service (EIS) 2035
Adherence to those objectives will be measured through the impact monitoring deployed at Clean Aviation level, and cascaded to each of the pillars
The project will mature major technology bricks for the thermal management to TRL5. The aircraft platform is considered for a seating capacity up to 100 passengers (minimum 50) with a range of 400-1000 Kms and Entry Into Service (EIS) 2035
Adherence to those objectives will be measured through the impact monitoring deployed at Clean Aviation level, and cascaded to each of the pillars
A number of assumptions taken at the project start evolved throughout the first 6 months of project execution. For instance, the Thermal management preliminary requirements document delivered by Leonardo confirmed the bleedless architecture of HERA
The need to review those assumptions was one of the feedbacks from the reviewers after the RP1 ARM. The consortium took it onboard and made several adjustments, some of which are still ongoing.
• HERA bleedless architecture led to a re-shuffling of aircraft concept of the Advanced Bleed WP, moving away from an initially foreseen contribution to the HERA concept, towards the SMR concept, i.e. the Advanced Bleed WP impact will now be aligned to the SMR ACAP project, with the benefit that in case HERA decides to revert to a Bleed architecture, trade studies of bleed versus bleedless will be possible.
• The need to encompass additional consumers when looking at the overall thermal management system led to the inclusion of fuel cell cooling into a “thermal management architecture for systems” trade study under Liebherr’s lead
• Another opportunity to insert Fuel Cell cooling was reviewed with the CAJU and the consortium from Q1 2024 onwards and is planned to be implemented in the forthcoming Grant Amendment
• Optimization of activities occurred throughout Clean Aviation projects in the case of Consortium Partners involved in several projects, such as REL’s proposal to create synergies between its NEWBORN and TheMa4HERA heat exchanger development activities in LH2 as heatsink
Further iterations occurred during Q4 2023 both with HERA and SMR in order to refine the requirements, allowing Leonardo to define the initial set of high-level requirements based on preliminary aircraft design studies.
Emphasis has also been put on defining the concepts for Digital Twins, the Prognostics & Health Management, as well as the Virtual and Ground demonstrations.
Also in line with the first Annual Review Meeting feedback, Impact Monitoring is another topic that required significant effort, leading to the delivery of a v2 document on the 4th of December 2023, taking into account the feedback for the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Further comments were received from the CAJU, requiring the issuance of a v3 early 2024.
Under the lead of DLR, the consortium delivered this 3rd iteration of the M6 Impact Monitoring deliverable, with the M11 submitted a few weeks later. Each time, the document was enhanced thanks to the comments received from the CAJU.
Significant progress was made on the technical assumptions taken by the partners, as well as the understanding of the next steps, during a F2F meeting organized in NLR premises, Marknesse, Netherlands, end of January 2024. The return of experience from Airbus and Liebherr, coming from Clean Sky 2, regarding the virtual demo was an important input for the detailed scoping of TheMa4HERA’s sysTRL5. Since not all technologies will be integrated at once in a single demonstrator, the path being followed is indeed that of a virtual demo.
Some additional delays were unfortunately created with the bundling of TRLs, i.e. regrouping several TRLs reviews with stakeholders in order to group them into one review for HER and one for SMR, but those were eventually passed.
Two of the three main 2024 achievements were declared passed with a few months delay, i.e. M4 - Cabin Air Compressor (CAC) TRL4 passed on 29th of August 2024 and M5 - Mechanically Pumped Loop (MPL) TRL4 passed on 13th of June 2024.
Another emphasis has been to disseminate results. Aside from the EASN 2024 where a whole thermal management session is planned, it can be seen that the Consortium Partners are materializing many opportunities to share their results.
Overall, despite the several changes of assumptions, the consortium managed to keep the delays under control and deliver most of its commitments. It should be noted that after an initial underspend mostly due to resources availability, up to Q3 2023 the consortium has been on the right track since Q4 2023.
The need to review those assumptions was one of the feedbacks from the reviewers after the RP1 ARM. The consortium took it onboard and made several adjustments, some of which are still ongoing.
• HERA bleedless architecture led to a re-shuffling of aircraft concept of the Advanced Bleed WP, moving away from an initially foreseen contribution to the HERA concept, towards the SMR concept, i.e. the Advanced Bleed WP impact will now be aligned to the SMR ACAP project, with the benefit that in case HERA decides to revert to a Bleed architecture, trade studies of bleed versus bleedless will be possible.
• The need to encompass additional consumers when looking at the overall thermal management system led to the inclusion of fuel cell cooling into a “thermal management architecture for systems” trade study under Liebherr’s lead
• Another opportunity to insert Fuel Cell cooling was reviewed with the CAJU and the consortium from Q1 2024 onwards and is planned to be implemented in the forthcoming Grant Amendment
• Optimization of activities occurred throughout Clean Aviation projects in the case of Consortium Partners involved in several projects, such as REL’s proposal to create synergies between its NEWBORN and TheMa4HERA heat exchanger development activities in LH2 as heatsink
Further iterations occurred during Q4 2023 both with HERA and SMR in order to refine the requirements, allowing Leonardo to define the initial set of high-level requirements based on preliminary aircraft design studies.
Emphasis has also been put on defining the concepts for Digital Twins, the Prognostics & Health Management, as well as the Virtual and Ground demonstrations.
Also in line with the first Annual Review Meeting feedback, Impact Monitoring is another topic that required significant effort, leading to the delivery of a v2 document on the 4th of December 2023, taking into account the feedback for the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Further comments were received from the CAJU, requiring the issuance of a v3 early 2024.
Under the lead of DLR, the consortium delivered this 3rd iteration of the M6 Impact Monitoring deliverable, with the M11 submitted a few weeks later. Each time, the document was enhanced thanks to the comments received from the CAJU.
Significant progress was made on the technical assumptions taken by the partners, as well as the understanding of the next steps, during a F2F meeting organized in NLR premises, Marknesse, Netherlands, end of January 2024. The return of experience from Airbus and Liebherr, coming from Clean Sky 2, regarding the virtual demo was an important input for the detailed scoping of TheMa4HERA’s sysTRL5. Since not all technologies will be integrated at once in a single demonstrator, the path being followed is indeed that of a virtual demo.
Some additional delays were unfortunately created with the bundling of TRLs, i.e. regrouping several TRLs reviews with stakeholders in order to group them into one review for HER and one for SMR, but those were eventually passed.
Two of the three main 2024 achievements were declared passed with a few months delay, i.e. M4 - Cabin Air Compressor (CAC) TRL4 passed on 29th of August 2024 and M5 - Mechanically Pumped Loop (MPL) TRL4 passed on 13th of June 2024.
Another emphasis has been to disseminate results. Aside from the EASN 2024 where a whole thermal management session is planned, it can be seen that the Consortium Partners are materializing many opportunities to share their results.
Overall, despite the several changes of assumptions, the consortium managed to keep the delays under control and deliver most of its commitments. It should be noted that after an initial underspend mostly due to resources availability, up to Q3 2023 the consortium has been on the right track since Q4 2023.
The technologies developed in the project are foreseen to be developed beyond the state-of-the-art, up to TRL5:
- Cabin Air Compressor
- Vapour Cycle System
- Internal Heat exchanger
- Outflow valve
- UBV fan
- LH2 as Heatsink
- (non-propulsive) Fuel Cell cooling
- Skin Heat Exchanger
- Capillary Jet loop
- Micro channel heat pipe
- Pulsating Heat pipe
- Mechanically Pumped loop
With a TRL5 targeted at the end of the project, a clear further uptake is the maturation to TRL6 of the technologies deemed suitable for future Regional and SMR aircraft. This is planned in Phase 2 of the Clean Aviation program, that will include flight testing of the selected technologies.
Following the kick-off of the collaboration with EASA, there are indications that new regulations could be an outcome of the project (beyond the timeline of the project due to need to align with other regulatory bodies such as FAA, etc...)
- Cabin Air Compressor
- Vapour Cycle System
- Internal Heat exchanger
- Outflow valve
- UBV fan
- LH2 as Heatsink
- (non-propulsive) Fuel Cell cooling
- Skin Heat Exchanger
- Capillary Jet loop
- Micro channel heat pipe
- Pulsating Heat pipe
- Mechanically Pumped loop
With a TRL5 targeted at the end of the project, a clear further uptake is the maturation to TRL6 of the technologies deemed suitable for future Regional and SMR aircraft. This is planned in Phase 2 of the Clean Aviation program, that will include flight testing of the selected technologies.
Following the kick-off of the collaboration with EASA, there are indications that new regulations could be an outcome of the project (beyond the timeline of the project due to need to align with other regulatory bodies such as FAA, etc...)