To reduce climate impact of aviation, decarbonisation is a major challenge. Current combustion chambers are burning hydrocarbon fuels, such as kerosene or more recently emerging SAF products. Hydrogen is also considered today as a promising energy carrier but the burning of hydrogen creates radically new challenges which need to be understood and anticipated. HESTIA specifically focuses on increasing the scientific knowledge of the hydrogen-air combustion of future hydrogen fuelled aero-engines. The related physical phenomena will be evaluated through the execution of fundamental experiments. This experimental work will be closely coupled to numerical activities which will adapt or develop models and progressively increase their maturity so that they can be integrated into industrial CFD codes. Different challenges are to be addressed in HESTIA project in a wide range of topics: - Improvement of the scientific understanding of hydrogen-air turbulent combustion: preferential diffusion of hydrogen, modification of turbulent burning velocity, thermoacoustics, NOx emissions, adaptation of optical diagnostics; - Assessment of innovative injection systems for H2 optimized combustion chamber: flashback risk, lean-blow out, stability, NOx emission minimisation, ignition; - Improvement of CFD tools and methodologies for numerical modelling of H2 combustion in both academic and industrial configurations. To this end, HESTIA gathers 17 universities and research centres as well as the 6 European aero-engine manufacturers to significantly prepare in a coherent and robust manner for the future development of environmentally friendly combustion chambers.

The Engines ITD will work towards radical engine architectures and new engine technologies to power the aircraft of the future. The objective is to increase fuel and energy efficiency of the engine and reduce environmental impact, regardless of whether the engine is powering a large airliner or just a small utility aircraft, meaning more thrust while burning less fuel and emitting less CO2, NOx and noise.

Borealis project presents an advanced concept of machine for powder deposition additive manufacturing and ablation processes that integrates 5 AM technologies in a unique solution. The machine is characterized by a redundant structures constituted by a large portal and a small PKM enabling the covering of a large range of working cube and a pattern of ejective nozzles and hybrid laser source targeting a deposition rate of 2000cm3/h with 30 sec set-up times. The machine is enriched with a software infrastructure which enable a persistent monitoring and in line adaptation of the process with zero scraps along with number of energy and resource efficiency optimization policies and harvesting systems which make the proposed solution the less environmental invasive in the current market. Borealis idea results from a consortium composed by the excellence of developers of worldwide recognized laser machines and advanced material processing together with the highly precision and flexible mechatronic designers. These two big clusters decided to join their expertise and focus on new manufacturing challenges coming from complex product machining in the field of aerospace, medtech and automotive represented by major partners in the market. Borealis project targets a TRL 6 and will provide as outcome of three years work two complete Borealis machine in two dimensions – a lab scale machine and a full size machine – which are foreseen to be translated into industrial solution by 2019.

The HYDEA project, which stands for “HYdrogen DEmonstrator for Aviation”, proposes a robust technology maturation plan to develop an H2C (Hydrogen Combustion) propulsion system compatible with an Entry Into Service of a zero-CO2 low-emission aircraft in 2035, consistently with the expected timeframe of the European Green Deal and CA SRIA objectives. The project aims to address fundamental questions related to the use of hydrogen as an aviation fuel, concentrating on the development and testing in relevant conditions of an H2 combustor and H2 fuel system, also including emission studies and further technologies which will serve as an outlook to future engines, i.e. NOx optimization studies, potential contrails emissions and investigating integration aspects between engine and aircraft. HYDEA results will be core for the ZEROe technology exploration project, launched by Airbus in 2020. The revolutionary technologies in scope call for an early engagement and dialogue with EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) within HYDEA, starting from phase 1.