The aim of the FAME project is to combine and further develop fuel cell propulsion into an overall concept for sustainable aviation. Green hydrogen offers the potential to significantly reduce or even eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from certain aircraft. The current "plug and play" philosophy, where the propulsion system is developed independently from the rest of the aircraft, can no longer be applied. Instead, a completely new design will be developed, adapted to the specific requirements of a short- and medium-haul fuel cell aircraft. More than 20 partners from industry and research are working together on FAME. The aim is to produce and test a ground demonstrator with 1 MW propulsion power, which will provide the basis and feasibility for the development of a complete fuel cell aircraft.
At IFAS, the flow through the cooling air ducts in the nacelle, which are necessary to dissipate the heat from the fuel cell, is being investigated experimentally and numerically. For this purpose, a scaled test setup consisting of a propeller with nacelle and cooling air ducts on a scale of 1:6 is being investigated. The experiments will be carried out in the institute's own propulsion test facility (PTF) and will investigate different scenarios of the starting phase, which is particularly critical for heat management due to the lack of input impulse.