Bio-Diesel as jet fuel?

Question

With the cost of jet-A soaring why not mix in some Bio-Diesel? Turbine engines will burn almost any hydrocarbon I have even heard of pilots and unscrupulous FBO's in third world country's mixing in cooking oil with the only side affect being that you burn a little dirty and leave a smoke trail

Jet-A is not highly combustible in fact if you took a lit match and dropped it into a bucket of jet fuel it would put the match out jet fuel is basically refined kerosene

Answer 1

You are right that jet fuel is not highly comustible. The only issue with using bio-diesel in an aircraft would be keeping it flowing at the low temps at altitude.

I worked a pilot project for the USAF back in the 1980s to determine if diesel could be used in small turbine engines and if jet fuel could be used in diesel engines. The answer to both was a resounding Yes! For the most part, no modifications were required at all.

Cold weather testing in Alaska revealed that diesel wasn't very good in extreme cold conditions as it would turn to a near solid at -70 F. Jet fuel in the diesels worked brilliantly though peak power was off by about 5%. Pure kerosene also tends to gel but not as badly as diesel fuel. Adding 5% gasoline to it solved that problem with no reliability issues in either the turbines or the diesels. We needed to add about 20% gasoline to the diesel to keep it flowing but had some carboning issues on both the turbines and the diesels at that mixture. In the end, we switched all fixed diesel engines (and a number of vehicles as well) to jet fuel and it's worked very well ever since.

Answer 2

Jet fuel is HIGHLY combustible, Bio-Diesel is NOT it is slow burning, which facilitates the need for glow plugs. Jet engines don't use glow plugs, perhaps prop planes but you will not ever find a jet engine burning any kind of diesel as jet propulsion works on the core concept of combustion.

Answer 3

You would have to keep it heated. Bio-D thickens as it gets colder and considering that jets normally cruise at altitudes where the temperature is in the negative numbers that could be a problem.

Answer 4

Bio diesel does not thicken with temperature, its vegetable oil with the glutin removed. Its just like diesel.
I live in Northern michigan and they have a bus called the charriot. Its powered by biodiesel and it runs fine in the winter.
The answer is completely yes. sheck this out:
http://www.wankel-rotary.com/
Go down to development and you can see a 150lb, 260hp diesel ROTARY engine.

Answer 5

Don Lancaster summarized it in his skill fundamentals article yet he used Watt Hour in keeping with Litre because the volumetric instruments of degree. His evaluation notably a lot confirmed that Hydrogen is the more serious conceivable gas for automobiles.