Mechanics, Materials Science & Engineering, July 2017 – ISSN 2412-5954
The Influence of Biofuel on the Operational Characteristics of Small Experimental Jet Engine 1 K. Ratkovská1, a, M. Hocko2, b, J. Čerňan3, c, M. Cúttová3, d 1 – Department of Power System Engineering, Pilsen, 306 14, Czech Republic 2 – Department of Aviation Engineering, Kosice, 041 21, Slovakia 3 – Department of Aviation Technical Studies, Kosice, 041 21, Slovakia a – ratkovsk@zcu.kke.cz b – marian.hocko@tuke.sk c – jozef.cernan@tuke.sk d – miroslava.cuttova@tuke.sk DOI 10.2412/mmse.99.53.683 provided by Seo4U.link
Keywords: Fatty Acid Methyl Esters, jet engine, alternate fuel.
ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the results from experimental measurements made on a small experimental jet engine designated as MPM-20. The aim of these measurements is to evaluate the possibility of using a blend of the Fatty Acid Methyl Ester biofuel and Aviation turbine fuel for driving aircraft turbocompressor engines. The experiments were focused on evaluating the influence of different concentrations of mixtures both fuel types on fuel flow rate, change to revolutions and the thrust of the turbocompressor engine. A significant influence of the composition of the mixture on the process of the engine ignition was recorded. As the percentages of biofuel increased in the blend with aviation turbine fuel, the time taken to reach the engine operation mode was prolonged. More accurate data and results obtained from the measurements on the small jet engine are discussed in detail in this article.
Introduction. Since the introduction of jet engine aircraft in the early 1950s, world air transportation revenue traffic volume has experienced unprecedented growth. Today, air transportation accounts for about 10% of the passenger kilometres travelled by all major motorized modes, and for around 40% of the interregional transport of goods by value [1]. The historical growth in air transportation was entirely fuelled with petroleum-derived jet fuel. Unlike any other sector, air transportation heavily depends on this high-energy-density fuel. For nearly 100 years, the perennial fear of peak oil – point of time when half of the world‘s oil resources will have been depleted and prices therefore will arise to maximum – has also contributed to the search for alternatives to petroleum [2]. It follows that the aviation industry needs to find new organic alternatives to conventional fuels, which should be a full substitute for kerosene and jet fuel. The main reasons are the dependency of aviation fuels on petroleum and the increasing impact of air transport on the earth's atmosphere [3]. According to numerous studies [4, 5, 6] it is believed that some specific Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) blends, such as low carbon number saturated fatty acid esters, could be reconsidered as a possible aviation fuel blend component. However, at the present moment FAME is not approved as a jet fuel additive. The maximum allowable level is 50 ppm, which is the officially accepted functional definition of Identified Incidental Material [7]. All the accepted alternative jet fuels have a common drawback: they do not have any oxygen in their molecular structures since FAME are not approved additives. However, the presence of oxygen in a fuel has two main advantages: it reduces the carbon © 2017 The Authors. Published by Magnolithe GmbH. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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