When Airbus launched its ZEROe project in September 2021, it included three different aircraft concepts. Two were classic cylindrical fuselage shapes, one powered by turbofan engines and the other by turboprops. However, the third, which has, unsurprisingly, been given the most attention by the media, was a blended wing body design - a picture of the future of flying itself. Unfortunately for those who may have felt a twinge of sci-fi enthusiasm when seeing the images, that particular concept will take a little longer to come to fruition.

Airbus has committed to having a zero-emission hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft ready for entry into service by 2035. Meanwhile, speaking at the Airbus Summit in Toulouse last week, the aerospace manufacturer's VP for Zero Emission aircraft, Glenn Llewellyn, confirmed that the blended wing body (BWB) is the least likely of the three designs to make it into production by the deadline the planemaker has set for itself.

Also at the summit, Airbus presented its hydrogen fuel-cell project, which will run as a parallel technological pathway to the direct hydrogen combustion testing the company is working on together with CFM International. One of the common elements of both hydrogen fuel cells and direct combustion is that the problem of storing hydrogen onboard the aircraft must still be solved.

a380 hydrogen demonstrator rendering
Photo: Airbus

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Storage solution and aerodynamics not enough

At its Zero Emissions Development Centers (ZEDC) in Nantes and Bremen, Airbus intends to scale up the production of hydrogen storage systems so that it can produce close to 50 cryogenic tanks within the next few years. While the blended-wing body concept revealed along with the two other more conventional cylindrical fuselages may be ideal for storing hydrogen, this is not enough to make up for other difficulties with bringing such a design to market.

Llewellyn commented on the BWB and the reason why it will, in all probability, not be Airbus' first hydrogen plane in the sky,

"It's a really interesting concept from a performance perspective because the extra volume that hydrogen requires to be stored is easily handled by that geometric shape. And it's a very efficient aerodynamic shape. But going in one single step, to change completely the propulsion system, and change completely the aircraft configuration would be simply too much. And it would push the targeted entry into service date out by several years. So we're much more concentrated on what we would call a classical tube-and-wing configuration with, nonetheless, a very, very different propulsion system."

At the moment, Airbus believes it makes the most sense from a technical and performance perspective to store the hydrogen in tanks behind the rear pressure bulkhead inside the fuselage.

Airbus ZEROe
Photo: Airbus

Different market factors to consider ahead of launch

Meanwhile, there will also be different considerations to take into account when launching the hydrogen aircraft that will eventually make it into service. The most significant cost variable, Llewellyn says, when it comes to operating a hydrogen aircraft, is the hydrogen itself. As such, the planemaker will need to approach bringing ZEROe to market a little differently than it has other products in the past.

"We need to think about where in the world the most attractive hydrogen costs will be. Where is the regulation most incentivizing for such an aircraft as well as what we typically think of, which is, is there a market and are airline customers wanting to operate it. So that's quite a different approach that we're having to take."

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