Understanding the Impact of Fuel Volatility and Viscosity on Gas Turbine Engine Ignition Katie Opacich Advisor: Joshua Heyne, Ph.D. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Motivation: Jet Fuel Certification Alternative Fuel Ignition Methodology Process is Carbon Intensive, Costly, Ignition Governed by Two Properties Calculate evaporative timescales: Time Consuming • Viscosity – fuel’s consistency / mean droplet Carbon Intensive size. More viscous fuels result in larger • 20,000-100,000 gallons of fuel used for droplets making ignition more difficult. testing • Volatility – fuel’s vaporization rate / distillate Costly properties. More volatile fuels improve • $3-4 million over a 3-5 year period ignition. • Above estimate does not account for cost of supplying test fuel Time Consuming Single Species Heat Required: • Extensive testing of fuel samples needed to measure properties, composition, and performance • Original equipment manufacturers require testing on their proprietary hardware Multispecies Heat Required:

Goal: Investigate how fuel viscosity and volatility affect droplet evaporation by Heyne, J. S., Peiffer, E., Colket, M., Moder, J., Edwards, J. T., Roquemore, W. M., . . . Gupta, M. (2018, January). Year 3 of the National Jet Fuels Combustion Program: Practical and Scientific Impacts [PDF]. quantifying timescales. This will help in A random forest regression for the Honeywell understanding the effect alternative jet fuel APU Rig shows fuel volatility and viscosity as Heat Transfer Rate: properties have on ignition behavior, one of the being top fuel properties in predicting ignition key Figures of Merit for the NJFCP. capabilities of alternative jet fuels

Moving Forward Timescale Analysis • Calculate evaporative timescales for • Viscosity and volatility both influence the multispecies fuels such as Jet-A, JP8, and other evaporative timescale portion of the ignition NJFCP fuels timescale • Compare results to literature values • Determining which property is paramount to Acknowledgements ignition performance can aid in predicting Joshua Heyne for being a wonderful mentor and advisor behavior of alternative fuels with minimal • • Erin Peiffer for assisting me with my research and for Certification process of alternative jet fuels engine testing being a great mentor

Rumizen, M. (2015, October 25). Sustainable Alternative Jet Fuel Certification and Qualification [PDF]. Washington, DC.