Overview

After decades largely confined to laboratory and demonstration-scale research, the deployment of liquid hydrogen in Australia has accelerated significantly since 2018. Adoption is now advancing across on-road, marine, and—more recently—aviation applications. Aircraft developers such as AMSL Aero and Stralis Aircraft are progressing liquid hydrogen propulsion systems aligned with Australia’s dependence on regional and general aviation, increasingly stringent emissions requirements, and the strategic imperative for fuel sovereignty.

Integrating liquid hydrogen into aircraft presents substantial technical challenges. How is the fuel kept sufficiently cold? How can liquid hydrogen storage and propulsion systems be packaged within the constraints of an airframe? This presentation distils practical engineering lessons learned from integrating liquid hydrogen into both aircraft and ground support systems. It addresses real-world trade-offs involving storage density versus pressure, fuel transfer architectures, boil off management, ortho para conversion effects, and safety systems. Operational considerations—including refuelling procedures and vacuum performance—are also examined. Together, these coupled thermodynamic and operational factors are shown to influence system design choices, reliability, and pathways to scalable deployment.

Speaker

Simon Coburn, Hydrogen Team Technical Lead, AMSL AERO

Simon Coburn is an Australian mechanical engineer with a career in product development and manufacturing. His hydrogen career started at Pacific Hydro in Australia with ammonia production and then moved to Hyzon Motors with the design, build and delivery of several hydrogen-powered vehicles, including a liquid hydrogen truck. Since 2023, he has been at AMSL Aero supporting the design of several liquid hydrogen-powered aircraft.

Time

18:00 - 19:45 AEST