Trade Studies of Hybrid Hydrogen Fuel Cell Battery Configurations on Regional Aircraft

This paper explores hybrid configurations and compares fuel burn benefits to identify whether hybrid electric, hybrid with hydrogen fuel cells, or a combination will bring aviation closer to decarbonization. A notional turboprop regional aircraft based on the ATR 42-600 (50-pax class) was modeled using public domain data to create a baseline. Then, technologies were infused to create a 2030 best-in-class vehicle as an advanced technology reference on which to infuse hybrid architectures and compare against. An existing parallel hybrid electric architecture showed a 2.42% fuel burn benefit compared to the baseline for a design mission of 500 nmi. This paper compares three major architectures: hybrid electric, hybrid hydrogen fuel cell, and hybrid hydrogen fuel cell electric. System-level trade studies were performed to quantify performance and evaluate environmental benefits through block fuel reductions. It was shown that, for 2030 technology assumptions, using the battery for power-intensive segments such as takeoff and climb and hydrogen fuel cells for cruise can reduce block fuel by 5.94%. As technology levels increase, hydrogen fuel cells can be utilized for power-intensive segments and decrease block fuel. The block fuel reduction of using hydrogen fuel cells for takeoff and climb in 2040 is 13.8%.