Design and Analysis of Fuel-Cell Powered Short- to Medium-Range and Hydrogen Engine Powered Long-Range Aircraft Using WUADS Design Code

This paper presents the extension and validation of hydrogen-propulsion modeling 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. Preliminary results indicate that the code performs well and reproduces correct subsystem behavior relative to published data, although some quantitative differences remain due to scaling and correlation limitations. HFC aircraft validation cases are currently being conducted on 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 behavior 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-fueled 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.