TU-155

Originally posted by RichardPrice
And I totally disagree - whats it going to do, rise 30 ft and *then* decide to burn? I think not.

Again with the 'above the plane' rubbish - if its bioling off of spilt liquid hydrogen, the plane and ground is most likely going to be soaked in it. Its not going to be burning above the plane, its going to be burning around the plane.

Another extract from another paper that has studied this then.

Will hydrogen fueled aircraft be safe?
Brewer, G.D.
AIAA - 82 - 1236


"Liquid hydrogen was shown to pose substantially less hazard to passengers as well as to persons and property in surrounding areas in the event of a crash. This conclusions stems from the following considerations: one, in event of a crash in which passengers can reasonably be expected to survive the impact, LH2 tanks are less apt to be ruptured, thus minimizing spillage potential; two, in the event a tank is ruptured and fuel is spilled, LH2 evaporates almost immediately, the gas becomes buoyant very quickly and it dissipates into the atmosphere so rapidly the time and the area exposed to flammable mixtures are both quite small compared to the other candidate fuels; three, if the spilled fuel is ignited, the duration of the hydrogen fire would be so brief that it would not heat the fuselage to the point of collapse, as would be the case with the other fuels and the heat-affected area would be substantially smaller.



For reference the other fuels considered were liquid methane, Jet A and JP-4.


There are more details in the paper dealing with the spread and vapourisation of the fuels - in each case considered, the models predicted the LH spill radius was between 3.5 and 9.5 times smaller than JP-4 and Jet A. The time to max spill radius was also much lower, between 25 and 125 times quicker than both conventional fuels. All a result of quicker dissipation into the atmosphere.


If your going to persist in saying that hydrogen won't quickly vapourise and rise above the aircraft, your going to have to provide some evidence of studies indicating such is the case (thats 2 papers I've cited versus nothing but inherent belief).

I am reading your stuff, you obviously are not reading mine - replacing JetA with LH does not reduce the weight, while it does increase the volume. You have three to four times more LH to do the same job, which means three to four times more fuel tank capacity.

I have said in terms of energy content, if the airframe weight was the same you would carry the same regardless of the fuel used.

I have also pointed out, that since LH will require more weight for the fuel tanks, you will need more energy, and hence more LH to fly the plane the same distance.

Safe is a matter of degree, theres nothing to suggest a plane flying using hydrogen is any *more* safe than a current JetA fueled aircraft.

Except pretty much everything I've read on it.

Hi,

Well here's another way of looking at things.

Intelgurl was correct, using electrolysis of water to manufacture hydrogen is not very efficient, therefore using power from the national grid isn't viable. However, check out Yakushima Island in Japan. There they generate too much electricity for their requirements using hydroelectric dams. They use the excess power to make hydrogen via electrolysis of water, hopefully one day they plan to remove all fossil fuels from the island.

Current and emerging technologies could make storage of H2 much easier and safer. Borax techniques and nanotech could help.

As for water vapour at altitude....well how about a new approach to propulsion, electric! Use H2 fuel cell technology to power electric motors rather than combustion engines to spin the fans. Water (pure) from the fuel cell could either be stored as it is produced or released as a liquid rather than vapour. Engines would be much quieter, much more efficient and much less polluting. If the H2 is generated from alternative energy rather than fossil airtravel would be a totally ecologically sound option.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers

Robbie

This is interesting technology, sometime back in the 1960's they built a secret nuclear powered slush hydrogen plant out in the desert. According to Stanton Friedman they blew super heated steam through a catalytic electrolyzer to separate and produce high volumes of Hydrogen and Oxygen on demand. I remember a strange eerie jet plume soaring skyward that was visible from quite a distance at night when they were testing out there. I suspect that was a landmark location for many UFO enthusiasts for years. TU-155 test plane would have been 1960's or early 70's according to my timeline, but that might have just been the declassification year since the Russians didn't do Chernobyl till 1986. We didn't embrace the technology as a green solution in the US either for some reason.

a reply to: Slichter

The Tu-155 was in the 1980s. In the 1960s, they flew the Tu-95LAL, which was planned to be a nuclear powered aircraft, similar to the NB-36H

a reply to: Zaphod58

Funny coincidence "4707" and the first plans were recorded in 1947.
I bet there is an amazing classified story behind this.