Combustion of Kerosene Jet A Fuel and Superheated Steam Injection in an Aviation Turboshaft Engine: Improving Power Output and Reducing Emissions

The global concern over climate change reflected in the Paris Agreement has emphasized the need to accelerate carbon emissions reductions. Nitrogen oxide emissions is another area of concern. Efforts in using renewable biofuels and lower carbon gaseous fuels have not succeeded yet, due to biofuel’s currently higher prices, in contrary to hydrocarbon fuels, and the structural/size challenges of pressurized fuel gas tanks. Therefore, a compromise is proposed, by combusting Kerosene Jet A fuel with a small fraction of superheated steam injection. Practically, making the smaller superheated steam tanks covers longer distances in larger aircraft. The results have shown the following reductions based on injecting a 0.1 mass fraction of superheated; unburned fuel from 10.4 to 2.5 ppm, combustion temperature from 674.5 to 626.7 °C, soot from 33.6 to 7.91 ppm, NOx from 84 to 42.9 ppm, and CO2 from < 36,206 to < 32,323 ppm. However, this temperature drop has caused a small reduction on the engine work output (T3 − T4). Validated results have shown that accuracies can be in the region 2.1 and 5.9% for pressure and NOx, respectively. Other validated results are within range and depend on the quality of the fuel supply. © 2021, The Institution of Engineers (India).