Book Description

Determining the fate and transport of JP-8 jet fuel is a complex and important problem. As part of the startup procedures for jet engines, fuel is passed through aircraft engines before combustion is initiated. Because of the extremely low temperatures at northern tier Air Force bases, the unburned fuel does not evaporate readily and may come into contact with ground crew. To determine the amount and duration of contaminant contact, the evaporation of the emitted fuel must be modeled. The amount and composition of the fuel upon reaching the ground crew may be determined by droplet evaporation models that have already been developed. The evaporation of the fuel after adhering to the skin needs to be modeled. This knowledge of the fuel's fate may then be used to determine source terms for use in toxicological studies. This research involves the comparison of two existing droplet evaporation models and the calculation of the evaporation of a film of jet fuel from a surface. The existing models are compared in order to make recommendations on which model to use to predict the amount and composition of fuel reaching the ground crew. To make the surface evaporation problem amenable to modeling, simplifying assumptions are made. The fuel is assumed to be a uniformly distributed mixture of representative hydrocarbon groups. Due to the complexity of the mixture of aviation fuels, a mixture of the predominant species were chosen as representatives to approximate the physical behavior of the entire fuel mixture. The goal of this research is to determine the most appropriate model for predicting the amount and composition of jet fuel reaching the ground crew and to extend the more appropriate fuel droplet evaporation model to describe the evaporation of a film of fuel from a surface. A validation of the resultant model is then performed by comparing the calculations to experimental data.