Accelerating sustainable innovation: How the FIA is driving the way forward for hydrogen energy by way of motor sport
From the introduction of disc brakes within the Fifties to the creation of the world’s best hybrid energy items with the 2014 era of F1 laws, motor sport has at all times been a hothouse for development, a spot the place the pursuit of aggressive benefit relentlessly drives innovation.
The desire to win is a robust lever, however when it’s joined by a fair stronger crucial – a societal demand for change – and boosted by the arrival of latest applied sciences ripe for exploration, that’s when motor sport’s capability to push the boundaries of growth actually kicks into gear.
In June, that was demonstrated in Macau, with the ratification by the World Motor Sport Council of the primary ever set of technical and security laws for liquid hydrogen-powered autos. The foundations not solely defend drivers and groups by establishing a transparent set of requirements that enable for protected, high-performance use of liquid hydrogen (LH₂), in addition they function a platform to speed up innovation across the gas supply. And in a world the place the demand for sustainable options is more and more vocal, that want to innovate is especially robust, as FIA Head of R&D Nicolas Aubourg explains.
“The FIA is at all times looking for to grow to be extra sustainable, to decarbonise motor sport, and hydrogen is presumably the final word expression of that since you put H₂ and oxygen from the air in your energy unit, and the one byproduct on the exhaust is water supplied that the combustion course of is correctly managed and accomplished,” he says.
“We even have a number of producers which might be extremely on this expertise. Presently, nobody is kind of certain if the long run might be hybrid, electrical, sustainable gas, or hydrogen so analysis into hydrogen could be very a lot on the radar of firms resembling Toyota, who have already got a hydrogen highway automobile, the Mirai, and BMW who’re about to launch one. Hyundai has hydrogen fashions, Alpine has proven some demonstrators, and even Ferrari is on this expertise, as they see potential for hydrogen for use with inside combustion and never with a gas cell.
“Lastly, because the FIA, we’ve a really attention-grabbing set of instruments — with some championships additionally very focused on hydrogen as a future possibility. The ACO (Vehicle Membership de l’Ouest) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, need to be pioneers with this expertise they usually assume that there’s a technique to make a step ahead and to alter motor sport.”
Knowledgeable Coalition
Initiated in 2021, the undertaking first centered on compressed gaseous hydrogen, the shape mostly utilized in highway autos. Nevertheless, as growth deepened it grew to become clear that gaseous hydrogen offered issues.
“If you wish to design, let’s say, a hypercar, which was our first goal due to the ACO’s robust curiosity, you must have massive, fairly heavy tanks and that makes the design of a race automobile fairly sophisticated,” says Aubourg. “Additionally, the time for refuelling is lengthy—it’s very troublesome to do it under two minutes and even three minutes as a result of you’ve lots of adjustments of temperatures, supplies. It is fairly sophisticated to take care of.”
With liquid hydrogen that includes greater power density and lighter storage necessities, best qualities for a racing setting, the choice was taken within the winter of 2023 to make the change. There was, nevertheless, one extra situation – this was largely uncharted territory with few earlier functions. Confronted with a clean canvas and a largely unfamiliar new expertise, the FIA took the unconventional step of looking for experience from each space of hydrogen energy, a transfer that introduced onboard some shock contributors and which additionally proved transformative.
“What we found with H₂ is that it’s a fascinating setting, one actually made for growth and one with some very attention-grabbing stakeholders,” says Aubourg. “It was pure for us to contain Toyota and BMW as they have already got hydrogen-powered highway vehicles, however you then begin to have a look at who’s working with liquid H₂, and there’s one above all others – rocket science and the area trade. And in Europe meaning Arianespace and the Ariane group. They’ve an infinite quantity of experience, so we looped them in, and they’re nonetheless very a lot concerned.
“Past that we’re speaking about industrial firms resembling Air Merchandise to produce hydrogen and FORVIA for tanks… And fairly quickly, you start to construct a really attention-grabbing ecosystem of individuals.”
Aubourg additionally discovered there was a willingness to embrace motor sport’s potential to ship fast advances.
“Folks working in rocket science, on highway vehicles, on vans, within the military, on planes – for them motor sport is a liberating setting. On this part we actually don’t care about reliability, about consolation. It’s solely about efficiency and solely about prototypes. With planes you want 10, 20 years to deliver issues to market. In motor sport, it’s a five-year plan. For them, motor sport is a form of refuge, a closed setting, and it’s pure growth.”
Constructing ‘bricks’
With a path of journey established and professional assist in place, Aubourg says the following step for the FIA Technical Division was to assemble the ‘bricks’, the important thing technical specification and security necessities wanted to assemble the brand new framework.
Among the many bricks are protected storage and temperature management, weight minimisation, refuelling procedures. And it’s tank design and warmth discount which have occupied a lot of the method.
“The working level of liquid H₂ in motor sport could be very particular,” says Aubourg. “It’s extraordinarily, insanely chilly and the difficulty is that once you need to hold it liquid, you must retailer it in one thing that’s remoted from warmth—any warmth. And if there’s one factor a race automobile generates it’s warmth. As quickly as you set it in ambient circumstances it begins to get hotter, and also you get what’s referred to as boil-off.”
Boil-off have to be rigorously managed, and any ensuing over-pressure have to be correctly managed to keep away from leaks and potential flash or jet fires. Making certain that LH₂ is saved sufficiently chilly and that pressure-control programs function successfully is of paramount significance
“The excellent news is that the answer is comparatively easy,” says Aubourg. “As quickly as you set what we name a vacuum jacket across the tank it may be very, very environment friendly. We’re additionally aided by the truth that in motor sport we don’t have to retailer the liquid within the tank for a protracted interval, as you do in a highway automobile, so we’re discovering some new options to have the precise degree of isolation, the precise dormancy time [where stored fuel evaporates over time, building pressure] and to make the packaging and the design significantly better for a race automobile.”
The FIA Technical Division has additionally collaborated with its sister Security Division to take the design into the actual world by way of a collection of bodily assessments.
“We started testing in October and they’re ongoing,” explains Aubourg. “These include constructing a storage system with 20 kilograms of liquid H₂ on board, the utmost restrict we’ve specified within the laws, and the tanks overpressure system is examined, or we test what occurs when pipes are lower. The following step is to destroy the storage system and to test what occurs when you’ve a full liquid H₂ spill going onto the bottom.”
Weighing in
As with each motor sport class, weight discount is a main aim with hydrogen competitors and Aubourg is definite that the analysis being undertaken to evolve the laws will yield large real-world enhancements – notably within the areas of tank and gas pump design.
“As a substitute of the 100 or 120 litres required for a race automobile utilizing fossil gas, with LH₂ you would want round 300 litres. We will discover some options by way of design, and we might additionally envisage extra hybrid options to minimize the LH₂ load on board. Plus, the load of the storage system is reducing every single day. The extra we interact with producers, the decrease the load goes. Some suppliers have began to create composite LH₂ tanks. So, every part is reducing.
“One other situation is the load of current LH₂ pumps. If you wish to discover a pump simply to boost the LH₂ to 70 bars to place it in an ICE, the prevailing pumps in the marketplace are, like, 30 kilograms. Examine that to a 500-gram fossil gas pump. There’s a lot to do there, however once more prototypes are being designed by the producers.”
Lastly, refuelling is one other “technological brick” the FIA engaged on as analysis continues and the laws evolve.
“There’s a protocol which is a bit complicated, however we’re working with TotalEnergies who’re in command of delivering the LH₂ for future endurance racing,” says Aubourg earlier than explaining that current refuelling strategies will not be suited to racing.
“In Germany, some LH₂ refuelling stations for heavy-duty vans exist already and may refuel a automobile with round 1,000 km of autonomy in roughly ten minutes Nevertheless, for motor sport we have to go effectively past this efficiency: as an alternative of ten minutes, we have to obtain 40 seconds, which means a refuelling fee of 1 kilogram per second. It’s difficult, however in accordance with first simulations it appears attainable.”
This, for Aubourg, is the reward of making the primary set of liquid hydrogen laws – an unlimited sandbox wherein the potential to take fast innovation to the race monitor and into wider society is a really actual prospect.
“it has been a very long time since I’ve seen that motor sport might be such a laboratory,” he insists. “And actually, work like that is increasingly essential,” he insists. “Folks, particularly younger folks, are extraordinarily involved by sustainability issues in motor sport, and past. We have now to anticipate this. If we need to race tomorrow, we’ve to do it. It’s our obligation – however a contented one.”
