Periodic Report Summary 2 - HIKARI (HIgh speed Key technologies for future Air transport - Research & Innovation cooperation scheme)
Project Context and Objectives:
Project Context and Main Objectives
HIKARI (High Speed Key technologies for future Air transport – Research and Innovation cooperation scheme) is a FP7 project selected under the call HIKARI FP7-AAT-2011-RTD-JAPAN.
The HIKARI Consortium, led by Airbus Group Innovations (previously EADS Innovation Works), gathers 16 partners: 12 from Europe and 4 from Japan. The partnership includes both small and large companies, research organizations and universities. The project has started early 2013 for 2 years.
Objectives
HIKARI project’s vision is to bring closer together all the existent research and to promote it one step further so as to establish roadmaps both for technology development and for the demonstration strategy of future high-speed aviation, in an extended international joint effort.
To achieve that goal, HIKARI gathers the most renowned partners already involved in related research projects, both from Japan and Europe, thus directly benefiting from their experience, background and competencies. HIKARI also lays the foundation to overcome today’s obstacles and create a path where High Speed Transportation will be a real and implementable scenario of our future’s daily life, allowing us, for example, to fly from Paris to Tokyo in less than three hours.
Description of Work
The works are structured around three main axes:
1- Federating existing initiatives
The main goal is to foster international cooperation by analyzing the various ambitions, identifying possible synergies, and rationalizing research efforts. The team exploits the existing projects (exchange of technical data and information), in order to derive conceptual guidelines and high-level requirements for a high-speed vehicle aiming at commercial operations with passengers.
The recommendations should capture at the same time technology and design guidelines but also commercial and environmental recommendations for the operations of such a vehicle for passenger transport.
2- Addressing a future commercial market
Within HIKARI, an estimation of the passenger demand and airline operating costs is performed, in order to provide insights as to the economic viability of high-speed transport and to feed the previously mentioned guidelines from the economic perspective. In a second step, this market study feeds a second analysis to justify the economic interest of high-speed transport at macro-economic level and will focus on public acceptance considerations.
3- Progressing on specific technology bricks
HIKARI also contributes to in-depth studies in three technological areas currently of interest to both European and Japanese partners:
• Fuel and Environment: several fuel types meeting high speed vehicle requirements are envisaged and their environmental impact is assessed.
• Thermal and energy management: HIKARI will provide a clearer view on the different solutions which can contribute to absorb the massive heat fluxes entering the vehicle during the long high-speed cruise: for instance on-board thermal to electric energy conversion, fuel preheating or self-pressurization.
• Propulsion: several propulsion architectures are investigated based on cryogenic fuels, and their consequences on vehicle design (tanks specifically) are analyzed.
Output from these activities are integrated in the project roadmaps.
Project Results:
Activities and Achievements since the beginning of the project
The HIKARI project has brought together all the hypersonic initiatives in Europe and Japan to drive the convergence of their concepts and roadmaps.
Thanks to the expertise of its 16 partners from industry, research centers and academia, it has derived a common path towards a joint design for high speed air transport and ultimately towards joint flight testing.
The market analysis and high level technical trades have shown that the most promising vehicle to address high speed passenger transport would be a ~14000km range ~ Mach 5 aircraft, with high performance levels to ensure affordable ticket prices. The market capture could then exceed 20% and allow sustainable operations of a worldwide fleet of more than 200 aircraft by 2040+.
To accompany the market growth and master the risk associated with such a development, an incremental approach is recommended, starting first with a smaller size vehicle (<100 passengers) and progressively moving towards larger aircraft.
Technology wise, the hydrogen fuel, though providing excellent range and cooling capacity, might not be the only alternative to consider, for other fuels (bio liquid hydrocarbons) might provide better overall climate/performance characteristics.
Regarding the energy and thermal optimization, and the propulsion, the technology progresses accomplished within HIKARI, both on the modelling side and on the demonstration side provide credible building blocks to the future aircraft joint concept. Furthermore, these technologies offer real synergies with other industries, and promising short term applications.
HIKARI has shown how the Europe-Japan partnership could allow achieving such high ambitions as defining the guidelines and roadmaps towards future high speed air transport.
This fruitful outcome allows considering a natural next step for this cooperation, in order to achieve a joint design following the HIKARI guidelines, and to prepare joint flight demonstrations following the HIKARI roadmap.
Potential Impact:
Expected Final results and potential impacts
The first expected outcome of the HIKARI project is a common understanding of the stakes and challenges associated with high-speed passenger transport, from the commercial requirements, to the environmental and regulatory constraints and down to the vehicle design and performance.
From this understanding materialized in joint design guidelines, one should be able to progress towards a unified design satisfying all the operational and environmental constraints, and achieving the best realistic level of performance.
Based on its technology and demonstration roadmaps, HIKARI should also be an enabler to further international cooperation on ground and flight tests, which will mature the required technologies and eventually make the foreseen design a flying reality.
In a shorter term, the development of these technologies will also be beneficial to other domains, like for instance high temperature lightweight materials for engine components, or high-altitude atmospheric modelling for business and commercial subsonic flights.
This will pave the way for the development and Entry Into Service of a disruptive and environment-friendly passengers airplane in the future, which in turn should bring remote continents closer together and foster business exchanges between them.
List of Websites:
www.hikari-project.eu
Project Context and Main Objectives
HIKARI (High Speed Key technologies for future Air transport – Research and Innovation cooperation scheme) is a FP7 project selected under the call HIKARI FP7-AAT-2011-RTD-JAPAN.
The HIKARI Consortium, led by Airbus Group Innovations (previously EADS Innovation Works), gathers 16 partners: 12 from Europe and 4 from Japan. The partnership includes both small and large companies, research organizations and universities. The project has started early 2013 for 2 years.
Objectives
HIKARI project’s vision is to bring closer together all the existent research and to promote it one step further so as to establish roadmaps both for technology development and for the demonstration strategy of future high-speed aviation, in an extended international joint effort.
To achieve that goal, HIKARI gathers the most renowned partners already involved in related research projects, both from Japan and Europe, thus directly benefiting from their experience, background and competencies. HIKARI also lays the foundation to overcome today’s obstacles and create a path where High Speed Transportation will be a real and implementable scenario of our future’s daily life, allowing us, for example, to fly from Paris to Tokyo in less than three hours.
Description of Work
The works are structured around three main axes:
1- Federating existing initiatives
The main goal is to foster international cooperation by analyzing the various ambitions, identifying possible synergies, and rationalizing research efforts. The team exploits the existing projects (exchange of technical data and information), in order to derive conceptual guidelines and high-level requirements for a high-speed vehicle aiming at commercial operations with passengers.
The recommendations should capture at the same time technology and design guidelines but also commercial and environmental recommendations for the operations of such a vehicle for passenger transport.
2- Addressing a future commercial market
Within HIKARI, an estimation of the passenger demand and airline operating costs is performed, in order to provide insights as to the economic viability of high-speed transport and to feed the previously mentioned guidelines from the economic perspective. In a second step, this market study feeds a second analysis to justify the economic interest of high-speed transport at macro-economic level and will focus on public acceptance considerations.
3- Progressing on specific technology bricks
HIKARI also contributes to in-depth studies in three technological areas currently of interest to both European and Japanese partners:
• Fuel and Environment: several fuel types meeting high speed vehicle requirements are envisaged and their environmental impact is assessed.
• Thermal and energy management: HIKARI will provide a clearer view on the different solutions which can contribute to absorb the massive heat fluxes entering the vehicle during the long high-speed cruise: for instance on-board thermal to electric energy conversion, fuel preheating or self-pressurization.
• Propulsion: several propulsion architectures are investigated based on cryogenic fuels, and their consequences on vehicle design (tanks specifically) are analyzed.
Output from these activities are integrated in the project roadmaps.
Project Results:
Activities and Achievements since the beginning of the project
The HIKARI project has brought together all the hypersonic initiatives in Europe and Japan to drive the convergence of their concepts and roadmaps.
Thanks to the expertise of its 16 partners from industry, research centers and academia, it has derived a common path towards a joint design for high speed air transport and ultimately towards joint flight testing.
The market analysis and high level technical trades have shown that the most promising vehicle to address high speed passenger transport would be a ~14000km range ~ Mach 5 aircraft, with high performance levels to ensure affordable ticket prices. The market capture could then exceed 20% and allow sustainable operations of a worldwide fleet of more than 200 aircraft by 2040+.
To accompany the market growth and master the risk associated with such a development, an incremental approach is recommended, starting first with a smaller size vehicle (<100 passengers) and progressively moving towards larger aircraft.
Technology wise, the hydrogen fuel, though providing excellent range and cooling capacity, might not be the only alternative to consider, for other fuels (bio liquid hydrocarbons) might provide better overall climate/performance characteristics.
Regarding the energy and thermal optimization, and the propulsion, the technology progresses accomplished within HIKARI, both on the modelling side and on the demonstration side provide credible building blocks to the future aircraft joint concept. Furthermore, these technologies offer real synergies with other industries, and promising short term applications.
HIKARI has shown how the Europe-Japan partnership could allow achieving such high ambitions as defining the guidelines and roadmaps towards future high speed air transport.
This fruitful outcome allows considering a natural next step for this cooperation, in order to achieve a joint design following the HIKARI guidelines, and to prepare joint flight demonstrations following the HIKARI roadmap.
Potential Impact:
Expected Final results and potential impacts
The first expected outcome of the HIKARI project is a common understanding of the stakes and challenges associated with high-speed passenger transport, from the commercial requirements, to the environmental and regulatory constraints and down to the vehicle design and performance.
From this understanding materialized in joint design guidelines, one should be able to progress towards a unified design satisfying all the operational and environmental constraints, and achieving the best realistic level of performance.
Based on its technology and demonstration roadmaps, HIKARI should also be an enabler to further international cooperation on ground and flight tests, which will mature the required technologies and eventually make the foreseen design a flying reality.
In a shorter term, the development of these technologies will also be beneficial to other domains, like for instance high temperature lightweight materials for engine components, or high-altitude atmospheric modelling for business and commercial subsonic flights.
This will pave the way for the development and Entry Into Service of a disruptive and environment-friendly passengers airplane in the future, which in turn should bring remote continents closer together and foster business exchanges between them.
List of Websites:
www.hikari-project.eu