A Novel Test Method for Fuel Thermal Stability
Abstract
The object of this work was to demonstrate that an FT-IR fiber optic probe and a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) probe could be used to measure deposit formation from thermal stressing of jet fuels in a high-temperature, high pressure flow system. These probes were designed, constructed and tested in an existing Fuel Stability Test System (FSTS) which had an FT-IR Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) circle cell monitoring the stressed fuel after cooling to ambient temperature. A Shell Jet A and a Sun Jet A-1 fuel were tested. It was demonstrated that both the FT-IR fiber optic probe and the QCM probe could successfully differentiate between a 'stable' and an 'unstable' fuel. The results from the QCM probe tests indicate that the drop in frequency for this particular probe results from viscosity dampening and not the mass of the film. The changes in the bulk fuel composition from thermal stressing were measured with the ATR circle cell, and were found to be significantly different from the changes in the deposit layer composition measured by the fiber-optic probe
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 1993
- Accession Number
- ADA265853
Entities
People
- David S. Pines
- Erik Kroo
- Kim S. Knight
- Michael A. Serio
- Peter R. Solomon