The effects of hydrogen fuel usage on the exergetic performance of a turbojet engine

Abstract

In this study, the hydrogen fuel effect on the exergetic performance of a turbojet engine used in a military trainer aircraft is investigated. For the first step, the performance assessments of the exergetic performance are conducted according to jet fuel usage and the actual test cell data of the engine. For the second step, an exergetic evaluation is parametrically estimated to use the hydrogen fuel in the engine. Finally, the performance results of the engine run by jet fuel are compared with the performance results of the engine run by hydrogen fuel. Regarding the results of this study, by using hydrogen fuel in the engine, the exergy efficiency of the engine decreases from 15.40% to 14.33%, while the waste exergy rate increases from 6196.51 kW to 6669.4 kW. At the same time, the exergy rate of the fuel rises from 7324.87 kW to 7785.25 kW, hence the specific fuel exergy of the hydrogen fuel is higher than that of the jet fuel. The waste exergy flow cost of the engine rises from 16.52 x 10(-3) US$/kW to 17.79 x 10(-3) US$/kW. The environmental effect factor of the engine escalates from 5.49 to 5.98 and the ecological effect factor increases from 6.49 to 6.98. On the other hand, the exergetic sustainability index of the engine reduces from 0.182 to 0.167 when the sustainable efficiency factor of the engine goes down from 1.182 to 1.167. Between the components, for both jet fuel and hydrogen fuel, the CC has the highest values of the fuel exergy waste ratio, the relative waste exergy ratio, the product exergy waste ratio, the fuel ratio indicator, the product ratio indicator, the waste exergy cost flow, the environmental effect factor, the ecological effect factor, and the exergetic improvement potential when the CC has the lowest values of the exergy efficiency, exergetic sustain ability index, and sustainable efficiency factor, respectively. The reason for this result is that the combustion process contains high irreversibities. The obtained results indicate that the hydrogen fuel usage in the turbojet engine badly affects the exergetic performance of the engine and its components (especially the combustion chamber) hence the specific exergy of the hydrogen fuel is higher than the jet fuel's. On the other hand, the exhaust emissions emitted to the environment decrease from 0.509 kg/s to 0.0045 kg/s with the hydrogen fuel usage.