The Search for a Cleaner Jet Fuel

Overview

Objectives/Goals The purpose of our experiment was to test for the cleanest running jet fuels from a choice of propane and Av-gas, and compare them to the most commonly used jet fuel, Jet-A. We predicted that if we use propane, the jet engine will produce less residue buildup than other common fuels. Methods/Materials We used the jet engine as the constant in the test. Our test variables were propane in a fuel bottle, and av-gas (general aviation fuel for internal combustion engines 100 low lead). Jet-A (jet engine fuel and our control) was used as the experimental control since it is the most commonly used fuel in jet engines today. We tested each fuel at three rates of burn, idle: (minimal fuel injected for engine to run), cruise: (medium fuel injected for engine to run, established by finding the median of idle and max power), full power: (the maximum pressure of fuel the engine could handle without flooding). To perform our first test a fuel regulator was installed from the propane tank to the main injector on the engine connected by a 50 foot safety line. Running the av-gas (general aviation fuel) and the Jet-A fuel (commercial jet engine fuel) required an electric fuel pump connected to a 12 volt car battery. Jet A required higher p.s.i. than the previous fuels as they seemed to be thicker and had trouble maintaining operating pressure. We used a laser heat gun to measure the heat give off during the test. After each fuel test we opened the burn can (combustion chamber) and inspected for carbon with a q-tip for buildup recording the results. Results We found that propane had run consistently hotter than the other fuels thus theoretically proving it could burn the carbon excess it produces. We know there is no consistency at which the carbon emissions occur between the fuels, so to further stabilize our results. Conclusions/Discussion We predicted that propane would run cleanest. It is well established that propane gives off less carbon monoxide and because of this we thought it would perform just as well in running clean. There was a significant increase in temperature from propane to the other fuels in our results. Both Av-gas and Jet-A left significant amounts of residue where propane left little, proving that propane runs hotter and has less carbon buildup. This doesn't prove that propane puts out less carbon emissions, however it can accurately prove that less build up will exist.

Competition history

• CSEF 2010 Applied Mechanics & Structures · Entry S0206

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Engineering projects
• CSEF Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2010 project