Honors College Theses

Publication Date

12-4-2019

Major

Mechanical Engineering (B.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Faculty Mentor

Valentin Soloiu

Abstract

Climatic changes from aviation emissions are complex and include effects of greenhouse gases such as: CO2, NOx, and aerosols. For that reason, the objectives of this study were to investigate the noise, vibrations and emissions characteristics of synthetic kerosene combustion in an aerospace gas turbine to reduce the engine’s environmental impact. Sustainably produced synthetic kerosene is known for having low soot emissions due to little to no aromatics (compounds that create particle pollutants), and for being a sustainable alternative fuel source to imported oil. The noise and sound levels were collected using Bruel & Kjaer microphones to measure various mid to low range frequencies of the gas turbine at the combustion chamber and exhaust plume. A triaxial accelerometer was utilized to measure axial vibrations during combustion, and a MultiGas FTIR Spectroscopy analyzer to measure 25 different species of gaseous byproducts in the exhaust fumes from the turbine engine. Jet A and IPK exhibited similar noise and vibrations characteristics, while the emissions results found that Jet A produced less emissions than IPK, most likely due to variances in the ambient conditions during each collection process. The additional analysis of S8 synthetic fuel and thrust measurements of Jet A, IPK, and S8 can provide a more comprehensive analysis of the sustainability and efficiency of synthetic fuels available for use in the aerospace field. In the future, these results can be validated using combustion and flow analysis simulation of the S-30 model using ANSYS.

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