Surface fouling: Short-vs. long-term tests

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:254819

Jones, E G; Balster, W J ^[1]

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1. Systems Research Laboratories, Inc., Dayton, OH (United States)

Problems associated with surface fouling of fuel lines, nozzles, and heat exchangers caused by thermo-oxidative stressing of aviation fuel have been documented. With enhanced aircraft performance, heat loads from both the airframe and the engine that must be dissipated via the fuel become greater. The resultant additional fuel degradation exacerbates aircraft system failures. Since the extent of surface fouling depends strongly upon the particular aviation fuel, it is important to be able to assess each fuel in a simple accelerated laboratory test for simulating the thermo-oxidative stress experienced in aircraft fuel lines. In the present study a simple dynamic test is employed, whereby the fuel is stressed under well-defined chemical-oxidation conditions that are near-isothermal. Quantification of surface and filtered insolubles provides an objective evaluation of fuel behavior at each temperature. In addition, the dependence of deposition rate upon stress duration provides a temporal profile of the reaction. The general laboratory goal is to evaluate fuel at several temperatures in an attempt to simulate thermo-oxidative stress but not the fluid-dynamic conditions in aircraft. These results can then be used to calibrate Computational-Fluid-Dynamics (CFD) models for calculating fouling under the diverse temperature and fuel-flow conditions that are found within aircraft but are difficult to achieve experimentally with small-scale rigs.

• OSTI ID: 254819
• Report Number(s): CONF-940813--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
DEPOSITS
FAILURES
FOULING
FUEL SYSTEMS
JET ENGINE FUELS
OXIDATION
PHENOLS
STABILITY
STORAGE
TIME DEPENDENCE