Particulate emissions and size distributions from renewable fuel blend for gas turbine engine

Due to environmental concerns and supply security, alternative aviation fuels derived from various sources including renewable resources have attracted ever increasing interests. These fuels vary significantly in their compositions, which directly affect engine combustion and emissions. In this research Fatty Acid Ester (FAE) blend with conventional JetA1 has been tested for their particle number and mass concentrations and size distributions from engine exhaust gases using a turbo shaft gas turbine engine. The results were compared to two batch of conventional JetA1 fuel (with higher and lower sulphur content). These fuels varied in their compositions in terms of H/C ratio, density and other properties. The engine was operated at three modes: cold idle, full power and hot idle. A Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) with a Nano-Differential Mobility Analyzer (NDMA) was used to determine the number and mass concentration and size distribution of engine exhaust in the size range from 5 nm to 160 nm. The influence of fuel elemental ratio (H/C), engine power and cold/hot operation on particle number and mass size distribution was investigated. The results show that there was a good correlation between fuels H/C ratio and particle concentrations, particle size and distributions characteristics. FAE blend produced less particles than JetA1 fuels.