Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.35, No.11, 4028-4036, 1996
Global Kinetic Modeling of Aviation Fuel Fouling in Cooled Regions in a Flowing System
Jet fuel is used to cool military aircraft. Unfortunately, heated jet fuel reacts with dissolved oxygen to form products which foul fuel system components. Two categories of surface deposits which form in the autoxidative regime have been recently identified. The first forms in heated regions as the fuel is oxidized. The second accumulates in cooled regions as certain compounds within the reacted fuel become insoluble at reduced temperatures. This paper seeks to improve understanding of fouling at reduced temperatures and to develop a global chemistry model that can be used in computational fluid dynamics codes. Experiments were conducted in a flowing system using JP-8 fuel with different thermal stability additives. Some thermal stability additives reduced fouling in heated regions but were not as effective in cooled regions. The deposition and oxidation measurements obtained for specific flow conditions were used to calibrate a chemical kinetics model which uses global reactions to simulate deposition. The calibrated model yielded reasonable predictions within the thermal and flow regimes considered.