Current rapid growth of the aviation transport sector is deemed to be unsustainable because of the large quantities of greenhouse gas the aircrafts emit at sensitive altitudes. To prevent growth limits on this sector being imposed, the airlines must become cleaner. In the present study, a sustainable engine concept – based on intercooled recuperated turbofan, fuelled by liquid hydrogen, and using water injection for take-off and climb-out – is developed. This concept is intended to provide airlines a clean, efficient alternative to conventional engines. A commercially available computer program is used for modeling the sustainable turbofan concept. The optimization scheme of Guha has been applied for the new engine concept for minimizing fuel consumption and the performance of the sustainable turbofan engine in the possible design space has been determined. Comparisons with an existing conventional engine (of same thrust) revealed the significant improvement in overall efficiency (44%), reduction of emissions surpassing the demanding ACARE 2020 goals, improved longevity of the engine, and simplification in turbo-machinery components trying to offset the increase in weight due to the heat exchangers.
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