Effect of nanoparticles on the fuel properties and spray performance of aviation turbine fuel

The influence of nanoparticles' dispersion on the physical properties of aviation fuel and its spray performance has been investigated in this work. To this end, the conventional Jet A-1 aviation fuel and its mixtures with alumina nanoparticles (nanofuel) at different weight concentrations are investigated. The key fuel physical properties such as density, viscosity, and surface tension that are of importance to the fuel atomization process are measured for the base fuel and nanofuels. The macroscopic spray features like spray cone angle and sheet breakup length are determined using the shadowgraph technique. The microscopic spray characteristics such as droplet diameter, droplet velocity, and their distributions are also measured by employing phase Doppler anemometry (PDA) technique. The spray performance is measured at two nozzle injection pressures of 0.3 and 0.9 MPa. The results show that with the increase in nanoparticle concentrations in the base fuel, the fuel viscosity and density increase, whereas the surface tension decreases. On the spray performance, the liquid sheet breakup length decreases with increasing nanoparticle concentrations. Furthermore, the mean droplet diameters of nanofuel are found to be lower than those of the base fuel.