Researching Turboprops: Fuel Comparison of Hydrogen, Methanol, & Jet A1

[Michael111]

TL;DR Summary

PSFC of Turboprops, Focusing on Jet A1, Hydrogen and Methanol fuels.

Hello

I'm trying to get some good reference material so I can do a literature review on Turboprops and a comparison of PSFC of Hydrogen/Methanol/Jet A1 fuels for turboprops. If anyone knows any good source material for this please let me know as I have struggled to find anything.

Regards,

Michael

 

[Tom.G]

A Google search for TSFC of turbojet may help.

(TSFC = Thrust Specific Fuel Consumption)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Benjies]

I'd echo what Tom.G said. You may be hard-pressed to find any sort of legitimate source for the fielding of Hydrogen for a turboprop engine, though. Hydrogen is an extremely high performing fuel, but the impracticalities encountered when working with a fuel with that low of a density often (if not, universally) cause aircraft designers to make subsonic engines run on some sort of an A1 or jet fuel simply for its density and simplicity of storage. Speaking with faculty at a university lab near me that are looking at the facility upgrades necessary to allow them to expand their combustion lab to begin working with Hydrogen- I can say firsthand that Hydrogen could be considered an "impractical" fuel in many use cases. You see it used in rocket engines where every corner must be cut for performance.

That being said, Hydrogen is being investigated as an alternative fuel for automobiles (yes, that's right), so as outlandish as it may seem to use it for a turboprop, culture and politics can play a strong enough role to cause the world to look into Hydrogen for the automobile... So feel free, room, to sanity check me on any investigations being made into Hydrogen for subsonic aerospace applications.