Recently, hydrogen and fuel cells have gained interest as an emerging technology to mitigate the effects of climate change caused by the aviation sector. The aim of this work is to evaluate the applicability of this technology to an existing regional aircraft in order to assess its electrification, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving sustainability goals. The design of a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell system (PEMFC) with the inclusion of liquid hydrogen storage is carried out. Specifically, a general mathematical model is developed, which involves multiple scales, ranging from individual cells to aircraft scale. First, the fuel cell electrochemical model is developed and validated against published polarization curves. Then, different sizing approaches are used to compute the overall weight of the hydrogen-based propulsion system, in order to optimize the system and minimize its weight. Crucially, this work underscores that the feasibility of hydrogen-based fuel cell systems relies not only on hydrogen storage but especially on the electrochemical cell performance, which influences the size of the balance of plant and especially its thermal management section. In particular, the strategic significance of working with fuel cells at partial loads is demonstrated. This entails achieving an optimal balance between the stacks oversizing and the weights of both hydrogen storage and balance of plant, thereby minimizing the overall weight of the system. It is thus shown that an integrated approach is imperative to guide progress towards efficient and implementable hydrogen technology in regional aviation. Furthermore, a high-performance PEMFC is analyzed, resulting in an overall weight reduction up to nearly 10% compared to the baseline case study. In this way, it is demonstrated as technological advancements in PEMFCs can offer further prospects for improving system efficiency.

中文翻译：

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飞机应用氢动力燃料电池系统的优化设计

最近，氢和燃料电池作为减轻航空业造成的气候变化影响的新兴技术引起了人们的兴趣。这项工作的目的是评估该技术对现有支线飞机的适用性，以评估其电气化，从而减少温室气体排放并实现可持续发展目标。进行了包含液氢存储的质子交换膜燃料电池系统（PEMFC）的设计。具体来说，开发了一个通用数学模型，该模型涉及多个尺度，从单个细胞到飞机尺度。首先，开发燃料电池电化学模型并根据已发布的极化曲线进行验证。然后，采用不同的尺寸计算方法来计算氢基推进系统的总重量，以优化系统并最小化其重量。至关重要的是，这项工作强调了氢基燃料电池系统的可行性不仅依赖于氢储存，而且特别依赖于电化学电池的性能，这影响着工厂的平衡尺寸，尤其是其热管理部分。特别是，证明了在部分负载下使用燃料电池的战略意义。这需要在电堆尺寸过大与氢存储和设备平衡的重量之间实现最佳平衡，从而最大限度地减少系统的总重量。由此可见，必须采取综合方法来指导支线航空高效且可实施的氢技术的进展。此外，还对高性能 PEMFC 进行了分析，与基线案例研究相比，整体重量减轻了近 10%。通过这种方式，证明质子交换膜燃料电池的技术进步可以为提高系统效率提供进一步的前景。