Date of Award

5-2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics

Department

Aeronautics and Astronautics

Committee Chair

Li Qiao

Committee Member 1

Jay Gore

Committee Member 2

Timothée Pourpoint

Abstract

Many companies are creating innovative new aviation fuels to decrease our reliance on traditional fossil fuels and provide more environmentally friendly solutions. Before introducing these fuels as standard alternative replacements, fuel properties such as concentration and temperature limits must be evaluated to determine safe handling and fire-safety standards. This study investigates the properties of Gevo’s Alcohol-to-Jet Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene, hereby referred to as ATJ. ATJ was also blended with Jet-A producing a 70/30 vol% Jet-A/ATJ concentration, respectively. Lower and upper concentrations limits were tested at one atmosphere and temperatures ranging from 230-350 °F. The lower concentration flammability limit fuel air mass ratio was determined to be 0.037, 0.037, 0.033 and 0.031 for neat ATJ and 0.036, 0.034, 0.033 and 0.032 for the Jet-A/ATJ blend at temperatures of 230, 260, 290 and 320 (±4) °F respectively. Upper concentration flammability limits for neat ATJ were 0.199, 0.209, 0.219 and 0.223, at temperatures of 260, 290, 320 and 350 (±4) °F respectively, and 0.215, 0.227, and 0.229 for 290, 320 and 350 (±4) °F respectively for the blend. For temperature flammability limits, fuel mass loading at 30, 100, 300 and 344 kg/m3 were used to determine the effect on upper and lower temperature limits. It was determined that the mass loading had no effect on temperature limits, except for the neat ATJ lower limit at the highest mass loading of 344 kg/m3. Overall, neat ATJ had lower and upper temperature limits of 113 and 173 (±4) °F, respectively. The 70/30 blend had lower and upper temperature limits of 110 and 169 (±4) °F, respectively. As a reference, Jet-A was determined to have limits at 106 and 153 (±4) °F. The blend was between the limits for each individual fuel, however, the limits tended towards that of ATJ.

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