Fuel property effects on USAF gas turbine engine combustors and afterburners

Since the early 1970s, the cost and availability of aircraft fuel have changed drastically. These problems prompted a program to evaluate the effects of broadened specification fuels on current and future aircraft engine combustors employed by the USAF. Phase 1 of this program was to test a set of fuels having a broad range of chemical and physical properties in a select group of gas turbine engine combustors currently in use by the USAF. The fuels ranged from JP4 to Diesel Fuel number two (DF2) with hydrogen content ranging from 14.5 percent down to 12 percent by weight, density ranging from 752 kg/sq m to 837 kg/sq m, and viscosity ranging from 0.830 sq mm/s to 3.245 sq mm/s. In addition, there was a broad range of aromatic content and physical properties attained by using Gulf Mineral Seal Oil, Xylene Bottoms, and 2040 Solvent as blending agents in JP4, JP5, JP8, and DF2. The objective of Phase 2 was to develop simple correlations and models of fuel effects on combustor performance and durability. The major variables of concern were fuel chemical and physical properties, combustor design factors, and combustor operating conditions.