| Turin, Italy
--Used in the development of "Ecological" AAPU for aeronautics (WAPA) -
"The expedition of researchers from Environment Park and Politecnico of
Turin will leave tomorrow, Tuesday August 28th from Gressoney la Trinité
(Aosta) to the 4556 mt. of Punta Gnifetti, on Monte Rose, for carrying
out a series of tests on hydrogen in the labs of Capanna Margherita, the
highest shelter in Europe.
An experiment at over 4,000 meters
to appraise the performances of a hydrogen electric generator realized
by Environment Park and reshaped by the Departments of Aeronautical and
Space Engineering and Energetics of Turin's Politecnico, to be used as
power generation unit (Auxiliary Power Unit - APU) on the ultralight aircraft
Pelican, provided by Digisky. The APU will the be installed on board the
Pelican, equipped with a data acquisition system, and will be directly
connected to the aircraft's electric system; at last, Digisky's pilots
will try it in flight to study its performances and reliability.
The generator can supply a maximum
power of 1,500 Watts and will power the tools, avionics and all on-board
systems of the aircraft. It's a hydrogen generation unit similar to that
installed on Easyriders, the ecological mopeds realized by Environment
Park, properly readapted for aeronautical needs by the research staff of
the Politecnico. The different parts of the generation unit will be transported
to the various route stopovers and on the top of Capanna Margherita by
a helicopter.
The tests target is to classify the
behaviour of the combustible cell in altitude, where air pressure is a
little more than half the pressure at sea level and temperature and humidity
are rather low. Researchers observed that rarefied air, like it happens
over 3,500 meters of altitude, causes a general decrease of the electric
generator's performances. The mission target's is to identify ideal conditions
for the working of the generation unit in an extreme environment". |