Conceptual design and optimization of a hydrogen-powered aircraft with a dorsal tank layout

Abstract The application of hydrogen as a clean energy source is revolutionizing the aerospace industry, especially in the design and optimization of next-generation aircraft. In this study, a tubular-wing hydrogen-powered aircraft is designed based on a modified Boeing 737 configuration with a dorsal fuselage tank layout. During the design process, the fuselage was parametrically reconstructed to accommodate tanks of different sizes; Subsequently, a multidisciplinary optimization of the hydrogen aircraft was carried out with fuel consumption as the optimization objective. During the optimization process, dynamic mission profiles were introduced to make the fuel consumption calculation more accurate. Finally, this paper compares and analyzes the differences between kerosene-powered and hydrogen-powered aircraft. The results show that the hydrogen airplane has an increase in weight of about 10% and a decrease in lift-to-drag ratio of 1 to 2 units. To offset these effects, a hydrogen airplane would need to be designed with a larger aspect ratio and provide more thrust during flight. Nonetheless, the results also show that, because of the high calorific value of liquid hydrogen, the total energy consumption of the designed hydrogen aircraft is lower than that of a kerosene aircraft for the same range.