SPRAY CHARACTERISTICS OF ALTERNATIVE JET FUEL AT ELEVATED AMBIENT CONDITIONS

In recent years, Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) jet fuel is considered as an alternative jet fuel because of its cleaner combustion characteristics. The chemical and physical properties of GTL fuels are different from those of the conventional jet fuels. The objective of the present work is to investigate the effect of ambient conditions and fuel volatilization characteristics on the macroscopic spray features. To this end, the macroscopic spray performance is visualized using the shadowgraph imaging technique at elevated ambient conditions. The near nozzle spray parameters like spray cone angle, sheet breakup length, and the sheet velocity, are determined from the shadowgraph images using an in-house program. The effect of ambient conditions on the near nozzle spray characteristics for conventional fuels has been reported in the literature. However, these effects have not been reported in detail for the alternative, GTL jet fuels. The results show that the ambient gas pressure has a significant effect on the spray performance when compared to that of the ambient gas temperature. At atmospheric conditions, the spray performance of GTL fuel is comparable to those of Jet A-1 fuel. However, with the increase in ambient conditions, the difference in spray performance of GTL and Jet A-1 is signifi cant.