Re: Hydrogen Cars, Trucks, and Buses Are the Answer Indeed

RE: liquid hydrogen as jet fuel

Somewhere on nasa.gov is a story about a mid-late 1950s US Air Force
liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel project.

Seems someone at the USAF was concerned about possible supply disruption
of petroleum and was thinking about an alternate fuel.
At the time natural gas was cheap and plentiful so was worthwhile to
use as a feedstock for LH2.

An interesting sidelight is towards the end of the project (before the
funds were cut) Pratt & Whitney built a jet engine which could take
advantage of a pecularity of LH2 - namely the energy which is released
when LH2 is vaporized before burning.

They added a turbo-compressor stage to the engine which was powered by the
expansion of the vaporizing LH2 on its way into the combustion chamber(s).

This increased the test aircraft's ceiling several
thousand feet above a conventional engine as the added stage allowed the
engines to "breathe" at altitudes a normal engine would quit.

--
The published From: address is a trap.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hydrogen Cars, Trucks, and Buses Are the Answer Indeed
    ... liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel project. ... disruption of petroleum and was thinking about an alternate fuel. ... funds were cut) Pratt & Whitney built a jet engine which could take ... aircraft being developed ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Hydrogen Cars, Trucks, and Buses Are the Answer Indeed
    ... liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel project. ... disruption of petroleum and was thinking about an alternate fuel. ... funds were cut) Pratt & Whitney built a jet engine which could take ... aircraft being developed ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Hydrogen Cars, Trucks, and Buses Are the Answer Indeed
    ... Force liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel project. ... Pratt & Whitney built a jet engine ... today however, lots of test aircraft, prior to more conventional ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Hydrogen Cars, Trucks, and Buses Are the Answer Indeed
    ... liquid hydrogen (LH2) fuel project. ... of petroleum and was thinking about an alternate fuel. ... thousand feet above a conventional engine as the added stage allowed the ... vonOhain - one of the original developers of the jet engine, ...
    (sci.energy.hydrogen)
  • Re: Skylon SSTO
    ... "Any hybrid engine must end up being a very efficient rocket for most ... There's little benefit in putting the heat exchanger into the LH2 tank. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
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