The spherically symmetric droplet burning characteristics of Jet-A and biofuels derived from camelina and tallow

This study compares liquid fuel combustion characteristics of biofuels derived from camelina (POSF6152) and tallow (POSF6308) with a US domestic aviation fuel (Jet-A, POSF4658) using the spherically symmetric (one-dimensional) droplet flame configuration as the basis of comparison. A blend of camelina biofuel and Jet-A is also examined. The initial droplet diameters were fixed at 0.57 +/- 0.03 mm. The biofuels studied have been considered as replacement fuels for conventional jet fuels. Results show that the evolutions of droplet, flame, and soot shell diameters for Jet-A and the bio-fuels are very similar regardless of intrinsic compositional differences among the individual fuels. Sooting behaviors were noted to be different with Jet-A forming significantly thicker soot clouds, most likely due to its higher aromatic content compared to biofuels. The broad similarities shown in this study were consistent with results reported in the literature for performance of the same fuel systems in actual turbine and flight tests where the fuel blends examined were noted to yield essentially indistinguishable differences in overall performance. The results suggest value to the spherical droplet flame configuration to assess performance of real fuels burning under far more complex transport conditions. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.