Keynote Speakers

This paper presents the extension and validation of hydrogen-propulsion modelling capabilities of the Washington University Aircraft Design Software (WUADS) for conceptual design of both hydrogen fuel-cell (HFC) and hydrogen combustion powered aircraft. The first effort focuses on the development of a comprehensive hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion module for WUADS, intended to model short- to medium-range aircraft where the fuel-cell systems provide the highest efficiency due to moderate cruise power and thermal-management demands. This extension introduces detailed subsystem models for the fuel-cell stack, air-management system, inverter, and electric motor to simulate energy conversion and power distribution within a fully electric hydrogen powered architecture. The results indicate that the code performs well and reproduces correct subsystem behaviour relative to published data, although some quantitative differences remain due to scaling and correlation limitations. HFC aircraft validation cases have been conducted on Cessna 208, CRJ 600 and Boeing 717-200 to assess performance, efficiency, and feasibility for future regional hydrogen-electric aircraft. The second validation focuses on a long-range hydrogen combustion configuration using the Boeing 747-400 as a representative case study to verify that WUADS – previously applied only to smaller, short- and medium-range aircraft – can accurately scale to large, high-capacity intercontinental transports. Validation reproduced the payload – range behaviour of the 747-400 within 0.5 % of published Boeing data, and Bayesian optimization recovered key geometric and performance parameters – including range, span, and wing area – with less than 2% deviation. The optimized hydrogen-powered configuration maintained identical passenger and cargo capacity while achieving a 38 % increase in maximum range compared to the baseline kerosene-fuelled model, reaching 10,054 nmi. These findings confirm that WUADS can accurately capture aerodynamic performance, mission range, and energy requirements for large transport aircraft, demonstrating its scalability and reliability for hydrogen combustion applications.

Professor Ramesh K. Agarwal is the William Palm Professor of Engineering in the department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Washington University in St. Louis. From 1994 to 2001, he was the Sam Bloomfield Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University in Kansas. From 1978 to 1994, he was the Program Director and McDonnell Douglas Fellow at McDonnell Douglas Research Laboratories in St. Louis. Dr. Agarwal received PhD in Aeronautical Sciences from Stanford University in 1975, M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in 1968. Over a period of forty-five years, Professor Agarwal has worked in various areas of Computational Science and Engineering – Computational Fluid Dynamics, Computational Acoustics and Electromagnetics, Control and Systems Theory, and Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization. He is the author and coauthor of over 600 journal and refereed conference publications. He has given many plenary, keynote, and invited lectures at various national and international conferences worldwide in over sixty countries. Professor Agarwal continues to serve on many academic, government, and industrial advisory committees. Dr. Agarwal is a Fellow thirty professional societies including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Physical Society (APS), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He has received many prestigious honors and national/international awards for his research contributions including the AIAA Reeds Aeronautics Award, SAE Medal of Honor, ASME Honorary Membership and Honorary Fellowship from Royal Aeronautical Society.

1. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powered Regional Aircraft; Hydrogen Engine Powered Long-Range Aircraft; WUADS Design Software; Cessna 208; Boeing 747