What is chemical composition of aviation fuel and is it available to the public?

Answer 1

Hmm,

It is well and good for fellow answerers to quite rightly delve into the various chemical composition of av-fuelm and indeed it depends on type of useage.

If you are looking at buying it, at very reduced taxation for use in a road vehicle, well, you are taking a bit of a flyer !

Sure the stuff is freely available from small private airstips.
My mate buys loads of it for his sons' racing kart, which works a treat, but some does find its' way into his road vehicles. 'Nuff said.

I totally concur though when used in aicraft, you do need to consider temperatures, altitudes, compression ratios, type of engine etc

If we drag jet fuel into the thinking, when working for the military in the Mid-East, helicopters were a must, but we got stuck in a very remote part one day, not enough fuel.
After a bit of scurrying around the village, we located a very nice man with a bowser full of parraffin.
According to the Pilot, this apparantly was OK for a short hop as long as the twin turbines were nice and hot, which they were.
No problem on what was effectively stuff for household lamps.
Smoked a bit, though.

Bob

Answer 2

You need to ask a more specific question.
There are many forms of aviation fuel. The Jet fuel commonly called JP4, JP8, etc is called Jet A or Jet A1 on the civilian side of the house. It is completely different than the fuel used in piston powered a/c.
If you told us which you would like to know about or what you intend to use it for I may be of greater help.
I can tell you that the JP8 (correctly called NATO F44) is a highly purified form or diesel distillate with an SDI and -100 component added. While AvGas 110 or 100LL is a higher octane version of the fuel you get at the corner gas station.

Answer 3

There is no defined chemical composition for fuels, the manufacturers use a suite of software which works out the cheapest way to make something with adequate combustion characteristics on the day that it is required. The software is hooked to the inventory and price system.

Basically it's a mixture of relatively short chain hydrocarbons, pentane through duodecane and that sort of thing (C5H12 to C15H32). Since all it needs to do is burn there may be some aromatic or branched hydrocarbons which have less hydrogen, so something like C15H28. Avgas has more short chain stuff and less long chain stuff than Jet-A which is what the US feeds to commercial jets. (Jet-A1 in some areas in winter, IIRC.)

Some fuels also contain additives for preventing icing, corrosion and static buildup.

Answer 4

Legally, you cannot buy Avgas because it needs to be dispensed into an aircraft. The main reason is because Avgas is a lead based fuel that even in its lowest lead content(100LL) it still has 5 times more lead than leaded gasoline had in the 1980's. Jet fuel can be had by the general public, however, the more common JP-4 does not create the same amount of power when ran in a diesel engine as opposed to a jet engine. I have spoken directly to Detroit Diesel about running Jet-A in some of our fuel trucks and any adverse affects. They said that the JP-4 would actually lubricate better but the engines will not run at full power power because of the high combustability needed to ignite JP-4. We ran and still do JP-4 in our old GMC fuel truck. Runs great and never have to clean injectors and fuel never coagulates because of the prist additive, however, the power loss is noticeable. But it doesnt matter because it runs on the airfield anyways where the speed limit never gets above 25 mph.;)

Answer 5

It depends on which kind of aviation fuel you're interested in. Jet fuels are highly refined kerosene with additives (such as anti-gelling agents, Prist being one example). 100LL is a 100 octane fuel with tetraethyl lead. The composition of 100LL is given by AirBP's MSDS as:
"A complex mixture of volatile hydrocarbons containing paraffins, naphthenes, olefins and aromatics with carbon numbers predominantly between C4 and C12."

As for is it available to the public, that depends. Some airports will sell you aviation fuel, the most typical example I know if it people buying 100LL for muscle cars. However, it's not legal to put the aviation fuel in a car that travels on the roads since road taxes have not been paid on that fuel. But a lot of people use it for track cars.

Answer 6

Other people are giving technical answers but an over simplified answer is:-
Parafin

that is
Domestic central heating oil or 27 second gas oil

for the record, commercial heating oil is 35 second gas oil, usually known as diesel.

They fiddle about with additives in all these products for specific applications,but in reality, unless you want ultimate performance,just get the cheapest

Answer 7

most aircraft run on jp4, jp5, or jp8. the difference is the flashpoints. they also have additives to keep them from "gelling" at high altitudes.
Get 10 gallons of #2 Diesel, add 2 bottles of isopropyl and you got yourself some jet fuel. more or less.

Answer 8

Well JP-8 Commonly used in USAF plane is merely filtered Diesel.

Answer 9

If you've got a diesel get some, mix it with some oil and a diesel will run. Avtur(jp8) only costs about 5p a litre.

Answer 10

Its Kerosine and yes