Oxygen re-absorption characteristics of aviation turbine fuel

Abstract

This study addresses oxygen re-absorption characteristics of an oxygen depleted, quiescent body of Jet A-1 fuel when sparged with air. A small scale test set-up has been specifically designed and used to investigate the effects of air flowrate, exposed sparger surface area and sparger porosity upon the time period for fuel to reach a near fully saturated condition (the regeneration time). Analysis of the results show sparger surface area to be the most significant variable in affecting the normalised rate of change of regeneration time, although the effects of air flowrate and sparger porosity are also highly significant. Non-linear regression analysis has provided mathematical expressions relating %O2 saturation to time for each combination of the independent variables tested. Scaling laws are also proposed (using dimensional analysis) such that the laboratory results may be projected to a dimensionally similar prototype. Through the dimensional analysis, equations are derived allowing sensitivity of the...