Development of a Regional Blended Wing Body Aircraft with Distributed Hybrid Hydrogen-Electric Propulsion
Srujal Patel, Emily Ragauss, Jai Ahuja, Jonathan C. Gladin, Dimitri N. Mavris
Abstract
This paper introduces a 112-passenger blended wing body aircraft concept as part of the Integrated Zero Emission Aviation academic-industry collaboration to achieve NASA’s goals of net zero emissions by the year 2050. This effort considers a novel liquid hydrogen-electric hybrid distributed system that generates propulsion power via a combination of liquid hydrogen burning turboelectric generators and hydrogen fuel cells. We present the concept architecture and modeling assumptions in this paper and discuss our initial aerodynamic optimization of the clean airframe outer mold line using gradient-free surrogate-based optimization. We include and discuss the aerodynamic optimization results, system-level performance characteristics, and weight breakdown of the aircraft. The proposed concept has a roughly 34% reduction in energy burn compared to a notional model of the current state-of-the-art E190-E2 regional jet. The work described in this paper serves as a foundation for future design refinements and related system/sub-system level studies as part of this multi-year initiative.