Turbotech is leveraging Ansys simulation to deliver the first viable hydrogen-fueled turbine engine for small-scale passenger planes, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicles, drones, and more. In partnership with the BeautHyFuel project, Turbotech is the first company to successfully demonstrate a hydrogen-fueled turboprop engine, emphasizing the crucial role of Ansys simulation in advancing next-generation technology.
Exploratory turbine designs struggle to safely and reliably use hydrogen as a fuel, resulting in difficulty balancing power output, fuel consumption, heat, and combustion systems service life. Turbotech takes a scalable approach, using Ansys simulation to help design and validate a gas turbine that is fuel agnostic — supporting an easier, streamlined transition to hydrogen.
Simulation-led product development allowed Turbotech to quickly identify the two best nozzle designs for real-world testing — cutting prototyping costs and timelines. Specifically, Fluent delivered critical high-fidelity predictions of the flame shape and temperature, and after 30 hours of hydrogen burn the nozzles retained nearly identical structural integrity, and the turbine did not increase emissions output. Ansys solvers also enabled Turbotech to run these simulations on boosted workstations, avoiding the need for large clusters traditionally required for combustion modeling.
Turbotech first developed a novel regenerative turbine through the Ansys Startup Program. This work helped pave the way for a digital thread that seamlessly connects and manages data, ultimately enabling the retrofit for hydrogen.
This series of tests is part of the BeautHyFuel project, supported by the French Civil Aviation Authority and led by Turbotech and Elixir Aircraft, in partnership with Safran, Air Liquide and Daher.
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