Australia: “AMSL Aero Collaborates with Conflux Technology for Long-Range Hydrogen-Fuelled Aviation”

Aus­tralia-based, AMSL Aero, a devel­op­er of zero-emis­sion air­craft, is col­lab­o­rat­ing with For­mu­la 1 car engine cool­ing provider, Con­flux Tech­nol­o­gy, to pio­neer long-range, zero-emis­sions flights of up to 1,000 kilo­me­tres at For­mu­la 1 car speeds, reports a press release. The announce­ment was made at the Mel­bourne Aval­on Air­show.

AMSL Aero will use Con­flux Technology’s advanced heat trans­fer inno­va­tion to cool the hydro­gen fuel cells which pow­er its eVTOL air­craft called Ver­ti­ia, enabling a cruise speed of 300 km/h. 

Ver­ti­ia is an Aus­tralian leader in the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty sec­tor. The air­craft made its first unteth­ered flights in late 2024. 

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Chris Small­horn, Chair­man of AMSL Aero, com­ment­ed, “In Ver­ti­ia, we are build­ing a hydro­gen-elec­tric air­craft that flies record-break­ing dis­tances at For­mu­la 1 speeds, mak­ing Con­flux Tech­nol­o­gy, with its past his­to­ry of inno­va­tion in motor­sport and avi­a­tion, the per­fect part­ner for us.” 

He con­tin­ued, “We are com­mit­ted to Vic­to­ria for future devel­op­ment of Ver­ti­ia and Con­flux is one of the State’s indus­tri­al cham­pi­ons, mak­ing the Aval­on Air Show the ide­al place for us to unveil this part­ner­ship.” 

The release explains, “The first phase of the project has been com­plet­ed, which focused on devel­op­ing three inno­v­a­tive heat exchang­er con­cepts aimed to min­imise weight and vol­ume, while effec­tive­ly man­ag­ing the con­tin­u­ous heat loads expe­ri­enced dur­ing flight. Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of this phase, the project moves into the sec­ond phase, where the team will opti­mise and man­u­fac­ture a full proof-of-con­cept assem­bly to inte­grate into Vertiia’s hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tem.” 

Michael Fuller, CEO & Founder of Con­flux Tech­nol­o­gy, remarked, “Hydro­gen fuel cells are shap­ing the future of sus­tain­able avi­a­tion and ther­mal man­age­ment is crit­i­cal to their per­for­mance. By inte­grat­ing our advanced heat exchange tech­nol­o­gy with Vertiia’s fuel cells, we’re opti­mis­ing effi­cien­cy and dri­ving the next gen­er­a­tion of clean avi­a­tion solu­tions.”

Conflux’s cool­ing solu­tion will be opti­mised to pro­vide cool­ing for high tran­sient heat loads expe­ri­enced dur­ing Vertiia’s VTOL oper­a­tions. 

Hydro­gen-pow­ered, box-winged Ver­ti­ia, makes first unteth­ered flight

“Weight, per­for­mance and pack­ag­ing size are key con­straints for aero­nau­ti­cal hydro­gen pow­er­trains and geo­met­ri­cal free­doms grant­ed by addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing means heat exchang­ers for these sys­tems can be light­weight and con­form to the space avail­able,” con­tin­ues the release. “Con­flux Technology’s unique thin-walled, patent­ed designs, deliv­er ther­mal per­for­mance and low drag.”

Ver­ti­ia will make its ini­tial hydro­gen-elec­tric pow­er flights lat­er this year. This will mark a major step towards AMSL Aero’s goal to man­u­fac­ture the world’s first long-range pas­sen­ger-capa­ble hydro­gen VTOL.  

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.amslaero.com

https://www.confluxtechnology.com

(Top Image: AMSL Aero’s Ver­ti­ia Air­craft)

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