Research of near space hybrid power airship with a novel method of energy storage

As a kind of efficient battery, regenerative fuel cell (RFC) will have broad application prospects on the near space hybrid power airship. In order to improve the gas storage density and specific energy of RFC further, this paper put forward a kind of RFC with low pressure gasbags to store hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) by the use of the huge volume of the airship. The calculation model of airship general parameters was established based on the weight balance and the energy balance equations. Studies have shown that after using gasbag gas storage method, the H2 storage density was up to 15.5% and the O2 storage density was up to 74.6%. Compared with the common RFC, the RFC with gasbags made the total weight of airship decreased by 19%. Under the same total weight, the RFC with gasbags made the payload of the airship increased by 94%. Therefore, the RFC with gasbags has great advantages and feasibility on the near space hybrid power airship.