ICE

Ice

A small, simple word. How devastating it can be.

We have already discussed the difference between anti-icing and de-icing on these pages. Now let’s have a tiny peek at the effect of ice.

There are 6.229 Imperial Gallons (7.48 US Gallons) contained in one (1) cubic foot of water. Get your rulers out and construct a cube with each side measuring one foot (1’).

Not very big, is it?

That much water, irrespective of whether it is the tiny US Gallon or the proper sized Imperial Gallon, weighs 62.288 lb (27.76 kgs). Heavy, yes?

One cubic foot is 1,728 cubic inches so a one-inch thick layer will cover 144 square feet (12’ x 12’)

(Sorry about all of this math – just trying to make a point here!)

The surface area of a small jet airliner – like a Boeing 737-200 is 6,500 square feet (compare with your home). This is equivalent, using the above data, to 281.17 Imperial Gallons of water at one inch thick.

That is 2811.7 lb (1253 kgs) of water. One and a quarter tonnes.

Want to consider the top of the fuselage and the tailplane? Hmm. Thought not.

Well, we could more than double that weight of water if we look at those other areas.

Is a one-inch thick layer of ice outlandish – an exaggeration? Not really. This is a perfectly feasible thickness. But, even a quarter inch thick layer of ice over the whole aircraft will come to nearly a tonne Actually, around 785 kgs). This is, you will recall, only a small aeroplane we are considering. We could, if you have time, do the calculations on something a shade bigger – like a B747?

Very well. We’ve made the point.

Ice is very heavy.

The enemy of aircraft is weight. The greater the mass you have the more power/thrust you need to lift it into the air. If the total mass of aeroplane, fuel, passengers and luggage plus the ice is too great then the aircraft will not fly. The limit is in the books as the Maximum Permissible Take-Off Weight (MTOW). Of course, we cannot measure the weight of the ice which is why it is vitally important to get rid of it before take-off; it is also vitally important to get rid of it as close to take-off as possible to prevent a further build up if it is still snowing or there is freezing rain.

Then there are aerodynamics.

This hits the aeroplane in two distinct ways.

Firstly, the ice changes the shape of the wing and also it can create rough surfaces on the wing.

This is critical because the wing is designed specifically to produce sufficient lift at a certain forward speed to get 20,000lb of B737 (in our example) off the ground safely and smoothly.

Note: ‘safely’.

Changing the shape of the wing changes the lift characteristics of the aerofoil (cross-sectional shape of the wing) to the point where, in extreme cases, all lift is lost.

Certainly there is a major move of the airflow towards stalling (the point where the work done to lift the aircraft into the air reduces to the point where no work at all is being done.

While the stalling point is being approached the centre of lift – this is the point under the wing where the air is pushing the aeroplane up, is on the move. It is moving forwards.

Eventually it moves so far forward that the nose of the aircraft pitches up and airspeed reduces dramatically reducing lift even more and the aircraft now possesses the flight characteristics of, say, a cat.

The second consideration is that an ice build-up in the engines, especially, but not solely, in the intake, increases the mass of the aircraft and disrupts the flow of air into the engines.

Jet engines really, really, like a smooth flow of air going in. Anything that ripples or is in any way turbulent tends to disagree with the first bit of the engine which will now stall.

This is a bad thing.

The engine now produces less thrust at a time when the main thing that the aeroplane really needs is? Thrust!

The result of not de-icing a ‘plane before take-off and not switching on the anti-icing and de-icing systems is that the ‘Air Florida’ B737 lands in the Potomac River after crushing vehicles on the 14^th Street Bridge.

Ice.

A small word but a big force.

Comments, questions, stories

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LAF and BAF Part 3.

LAF and BAF Part 3.

And so we look at BAF.

BAF, or ‘Big Aeroplane Fuel’ as we have come to know it, is paraffin. Or, if you prefer, kerosene.

Why do we use it in big aeroplanes?

The flame rate is slower at only a few feet per second. It is harder to light and easier to extinguish. The energy content is acceptable at (Jet A-1) 43.15 MJ/kg (1 MJ/kg = 430 Btu/lb so about 18,500 Btu/lb.).

Aviation turbine fuel (Avtur) is commonly known in commercial circles as Jet A-1. There is also a Jet B. And a gasoline based jet fuel called Avtag.

Let’s look at some fuels that are kerosene jet fuels:

JET A         A kerosene type fuel with a freezing point around -40°C. It is available only in the U.S.A.

SG Range = 0·775 to 0·83

JET A1         See below

JET B         This is a wide range distillate known as a wide cut gasoline. Not in common use. It is a Naphtha based fuel used primarily for low temperature conditions.

SG Range = around 0·76.

JP 4         This is a wide range distillate known as a wide cut gasoline. When certain additives are present it may be known as AVTAG. For military use.

SG Range = around 0·76

JP 5         High flash point kerosene mainly for aircraft carrier use. May be known as AVCAT.

SG Range = around 0·83

PROPERTIES OF JET A1

FLASH POINT                           38°C Minimum

SPECIFIC GRAVITY                  0·81 at 15°C

CALORIFIC GRAVITY                  18,560 BThU/lb OR 150,400 BThU/gallon

VISCOSITY-         from 22 Centistokes at -60°C to 1·2 Centistokes at +43°C

FREEZING TEMPERATURE         -40°C maximum.

Note: When kerosene freezes it forms a sort of sludge.  Really, it is the water in it that is freezing and not the kerosene itself. Diesel does a similar thing that we call ‘waxing’.

Problems?

Well, OK.

Kerosene, in common with other hydrocarbon fuels, is hygroscopic. That means it loves water. It will soak up water until the water begins to coalesce. Major problem now. That water will form droplets in the tank that becomes larger pools. The water that goes down the feed line to the engine can cause flameout and the water that remains causes corrosion in two ways:

1.   By direct contact with the metal walls of the tank and,

2.   By promoting the growth of fungus.

Unlike gasolines, kerosenes all have microbial spores in them. If the temperature is satisfactory for it and if there is water present then these spores will hatch out into fungal growths.

Believe me, this fungus smells really, really bad. It also blocks filters, and pipelines as well as causing corrosion.

Another problem is that the fuel, in rolling around in the tank because of aircraft manoeuvres, will rub on itself creating friction that, in turn, creates static electricity. If there is one part of the fuel at a low level of electrical charge and another portion that is at a high state of charge then there will be lightning in the tank.

This is a bad thing.

To prevent this an additive is put in the fuel to make it electrically conductive. There are also other additives to prevent icing, to prevent fungus growing (biocidal additives) and lubricity additives to stop the pumps and things burning out.

These fuels are very well engineered, are they not?

Some general thoughts.

All fuels are toxic. If you are going into a tank that has had any fuel in it then you need to vent the tank thoroughly.

You also need a medical check before going in or there may be insurance problems in the event of a disaster.

Once the tank has vented remember that there will always be loose (wet) fuel somewhere that is sneaking up on you as vapour.

Measure, and monitor, the lower explosive limit all the time. If the tank is below 25% of the LEL you may go in with breathing apparatus. Below 5% LEL you can remove the breathing kit –but beware that it doesn’t sneak up while you are in there.

Note: ALWAYS HAVE A SAFETY PERSON

Make sure the safety person is strong enough to get you out if you become unconscious!

Make sure that you do all the talking so that the safety person knows you are all right!

If you get fuel on you—wash with cold water FIRST! Then wash with hot water.

Hot water opens the pores (little holes) in your skin and that lets the fuel into your body.

Now you know.  BAF and LAF should never, ever be mixed up. Disasters have happened due to the refuelling of Big Aeroplanes with LAF and Little Aeroplanes with BAF.

Don’t let it happen to you!

BAF and LAF Part 2

Let’s start with LAF.

No particular reason other than it’s my ‘Blog’ and I choose to start with LAF. OK?

LAF is short for ‘Little Aeroplane Fuel’ and is petrol. Also known in some, less developed, parts as ‘gasoline’. For this reason the petrol they put in aeroplanes is known as AvGas.

AvGas is ‘Aviation Gasoline’.

AvGas is very similar to the stuff you put in your car to make it go—unless your car runs on diesel or NGV in which case it is very different.

Putting petrol in aeroplanes gives several problems.

Let’s start with the idea that as you ascend up Mount Everest the boiling point of your water is going down. By the time you get to the summit your water will boil off by pouring some in your hand.

Similarly, the water in your car radiator will not boil until it gets to 110°C, or thereabouts, because the radiator and cooling system is pressurised.

This change in boiling point is all due to the different pressures on the surface of the water.

To say that water boils at 100°C is only true if we add “at ISA SL” atmospheric pressure.

Note: ISA SL = International Standard Atmosphere at Sea Level.

Caution: If you remove the cap from the radiator of a hot engine the pressure on the coolant will suddenly reduce—thus lowering the boiling point dramatically. Equally dramatically, every molecule of coolant will now wish to turn to vapour, which will cause it to occupy a much greater space. Since there is no more space in its immediate surroundings the only place it can move to is outside the system that contains it. It will do this by attempting to pass through the hole that you have just made.

Result? A jet of superheated steam in excess of 100°C will now come out of the radiator filling hole at huge velocities. Contact with your skin will scald the skin and the velocity of the escaping gas will rip it off.

Important to know this, isn’t it?

Note: The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which it can change state from a liquid to a gas throughout the bulk of the liquid.

Now let’s think about petrol. Petrol is lighter than water. It evolves into vapour more readily than water. Its boiling point is lower than water (95°C at ISA SL). Like water, the boiling point will reduce with altitude.

Aeroplanes fly higher than Mount Everest but, in World War Two, the American high level bombers, flying lower than Mount Everest, were losing up to 10% (Ten Per Cent!!!) of their fuel load because the gasoline was boiling off—it was turning into vapour.

Although the figures will vary considerably we could say that the RVP (Reid Vapour Pressure) for petrol is around 10-12psi.

So what is RVP?

Reid Vapour Pressure is defined as the absolute vapor pressure exerted by a liquid at 100 °F (37.8 °C) as determined by the test method ASTM-D-323.

What does this mean in practical terms?

There is a surface pressure at which hydrocarbon fuels will begin turning to vapour at a specific fuel temperature. Of course, gasoline and other fuels will vaporise over a period of time at any pressure and temperature but there comes a point at which vapour evolution is critical and measurable because of the reduction in boiling point.

The cure? Pressurise the fuel storage system (fuel tanks). This may create a heavier structure and a complex system to control it—also heavier.

What other problems are there?

In the old days there were lots of different petrols (Avgas) available. They were engineered to tolerate different compression ratios.

This leads us straight into a triumvirate of conditions.

Piston engines that use gasoline all operate as a ‘Modified Otto Cycle’ They are four stroke (for the most part) engines. The four strokes are:

1.             Induction. The piston moves down to allow a fresh mixture (fuel and air) into the cylinder head.

2.            Compression. The piston moves upwards to increase the pressure on the mixture.

3.            Power. Just before the piston reaches the top of the compression stroke there will be a spark to ignite the mixture. The burning mixture now adds heat energy to the system at constant volume. The increase in pressure moves the piston down on the power stroke.

4.            Exhaust. The piston moves back up to allow the burnt gases out of the cylinder head, thus making room for fresh mixture.

At 3,000 rpm each stroke takes ¹/₅₀^th of a second. Not much time, then.

Gasoline vapour burns at about 100’ (feet) per second. It takes time to burn and more time to transfer the heat to the air and then the air needs time to expand.

This is why the spark has to be before the piston gets to the top, to allow for a delay in the burning, transfer of heat, expansion in the cylinder head.

Another factor is mixture strength.

Complicated, isn’t it?

The stoichiometric ratio (sorry about that!) for gasoline is 14.6:1 (Natural Gas and Diesel are about 14.5:1; compare with Hydrogen at 34.3:1.).

Note: A stoichiometric ratio is the ratio at which all the fuel and all the available oxygen are completely burnt. A perfect mixture, if you like.

So you have 14.6 parts of oxygen and 1 part of fuel vapour. It will now burn nicely.

About 12:1 will also burn but that is called a ‘rich’ mixture. You are leaving a trail of black smoke (unburnt fuel turns to carbon as opposed to oil that burns blue-ish or white). A weak mixture extreme might be around 17:1. We like to burn a tiny bit weak because that saves us money on fuel but too weak creates a hole in the piston, valves and our bank account.

So what if we have a high compression ratio, a weak mixture and an advanced ignition?

Whoa? A what?

The faster that an engine is running the less time there is for the fuel to burn. For this reason the spark needs to be initiated even earlier. Then, as the rpm of the engine reduces, the spark can be moved closer to TDC (Top Dead Centre—the point where the piston changes direction at the top of the cylinder as opposed to BDC—Bottom Dead Centre which is the same thing at the other end of the piston’s travel).

Moving the spark away from TDC is advancing the ignition and moving it back towards TDC is retarding the ignition.

If we advance the spark too far the air will expand and push down on the piston too soon. We need this maximum pressure—called BMEP (Brake Mean Effective Pressure), around 22° after TDC for best results.

Too soon and the mixture in the cylinder head will cease to burn rapidly and will, instead, explode. This is called detonation or ‘pinking’ or ‘knocking’. It is very damaging to the engine.

Aero Piston engines needed increased compression ratios to develop more and more power. This increase in CR (Compression Ratio) creates a higher possibility of having detonation.

Note: Many piston engines have bimetal washers under the cylinder head wired to a gauge. This acts as a temperature sensor. A sudden increase in cylinder head temperature indicates that detonation is occurring.

Petrol is engineered to deal with detonation—up to a point.

Most petrols have an ‘octane’ rating. For your car it will be either 95 or 97.

For aeroplanes it is normally, now, 100LL.

The octane rating of petrol was increased by the addition of Tetra Ethyl Lead. This is a bad thing.

Now it is done with other additives and hence we have 100LL or 100 Low Lead.

An octane rating is found by increasing the compression ratio of an engine using the fuel at a specified mixture strength until detonation occurs and then comparing it with an iso-octane fuel. The 95 or 97 is a percentage of that figure—the iso-octane is always 100%.

You cannot get more than 100% so a higher number will be a ‘Performance Number’ and not an octane rating.

100/130 AvGas, now commonly called Avgas 100, is dyed green. 100LL has replaced 100/130 in most places, but AvGas 100/130 is still sold in Australia and New Zealand, I’m told.

In the past other grades were also available particularly for military use, such as AvGas 115/145 (dyed purple) and 91/96 (dyed brown).

Limited batches of 115/145, commonly called AvGas 115, are produced for special events such as unlimited air races; in the past 115/145 was used as the primary fuel for radial engines.

The second number is the Performance Number at ‘Rich Mixture’ conditions. On most of these engines the mixture strength can be adjusted for ‘warm up’, acceleration (Take off) and ‘Economical Cruise’.

So now you see that Little Aeroplane Fuel is quite complicated.  You should also note that it catches fire more easily and is more difficult to extinguish than BAF. It is also more expensive.

We shall look at BAF in Part 3.

BAF & LAF Part 1.

A short while ago I was asked, in passing, if the ‘petrol’ used by aeroplanes is all the same.

The answer to this is ‘no’. It is not.

And so we move on.

The subject this time is BAF and LAF.

You want to know, don’t you? I can tell.

OK.

BAF = Big Aeroplane Fuel

LAF = Little Aeroplane Fuel

Way, way back in the early days before even I was born—yes, yes, there was such a time, all aeroplanes used LAF.

Then, just after the Second World War, little aeroplanes used BAF until the de Havilland Comet was invented. Aaaah! De Havilland! A thing of grace and beauty that swung effortlessly into the air assisted by angels and four de Havilland Ghost engines on the 27^th July, 1949. BOAC started services with the Comet 1 in May, 1952.

Note: the Boeing 707 was not invented until 1955.

Up until the Comet and the 707 (720, according to United Airlines) all big aeroplanes used LAF. Most little aeroplanes were now using BAF

These little aeroplanes were Hawker Hunters, Supermarine Swifts, Fairey Gannets and the like.

Some mid-sized aeroplanes like Vickers Viscounts, F27 Friendships and Dart Heralds were also using BAF.

In the sixties and seventies a swarm of big aeroplanes took over commercial flying that were equipped with magical engines called ‘gas turbines’—jet engines, that were more powerful, more economical, more reliable, quieter (inside the aeroplane) and smoother than the old piston engines.

Suddenly the world had changed. Suddenly the world could afford to fly. The airways as the province of the wealthy and famous was gone.

There are still some hangovers from those days. To cross large bodies of water you still need to have more than two engines—that led to the development of a host of three-engined aircraft like the Lockheed Tristar, BAe Trident, Douglas DC10.

Big aeroplanes now use BAF and little aeroplanes use LAF except that there are still some preserved, old aeroplanes that are big and use LAF and, of course, there are a few little aeroplanes that use BAF.

There will always be delusions if grandeur amongst the smaller ones!

Now we shall look at what BAF and LAF is.

The Great Step Forward

Going over some old thoughts the other day.  Pondering, as it were, the way jet engines have changed over the years.

No change in the basic theory, of course, but a lot of refinements and improvements in materials.

Of course, the manufacturers have put in a lot of effort to fine tune engines and improve gas flows and aerodynamics—especially in the turbine but there has been one thing that, to my mind, was the real turning point.  That moment in time when jet engines ‘grew up’.

Before I get into that, let’s just think about the ‘old days’ of  gas turbines.  Aero-gas turbines as opposed to hulking great industrial LP gas turbines with, or without, closed loop systems as made by the likes of Solar and ASEA Brown Boveri.

[NB: The Solar Saturn engine, first designed in 1950 for the US Navy and produced in 1960, went on to become the world's most widely used industrial gas turbine with some 4800 units in 80 countries. It remains in production today in two up-rated and enhanced configurations.]

Our good old ‘clunky’ engines were highly reliable and ruggedly built, for the most part.  They were pretty heavy for their thrust output but the idea was to contain all that heat and energy.

Of course, many of the old engines were centrifugal flow.  The wonderful sounding Derwent, Ghost, Goblin were all centrifugal flow as were the first turbopropellers—chief among them being the redoubtable Dart, still in use today.  First produced in the late 1940s, it powered the first Vickers Viscount maiden flight in 1948, and was still in production until the last F27s and H.S 748s were produced in 1987.

These centrifugal flow engines were very robust and had very simple systems; the fuel system on the Dart is a model of simplicity.

“Whittle… stressed the great simplicity of his engine. Hives [Director of Rolls Royce] commented, ‘We’ll soon design the bloody simplicity out of it.’ ” [From Genesis of the Jet]

How successfully they have achieved that!

[NB:  http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/labs/gtl/early_GT_history.html

Is an interesting web page—especially the early history.]

Of course there were axial flow engines, too.  The Avon, Sapphire, Viper were all axial flow as were many of the early Pratt & Whitney engines.

Some engines were compounded.  The reverse flow Proteus turbopropeller engine had axial flow and a centrifugal last stage to ‘turn’ the air around the corner into the combustion section.  This is still something that is widely used, not least by the wonderful PT6 engine.

All these engines had alloy front ends with aluminised mild steel rear compressor sections and outer combustion casings.  The materials used were fairly standard in those days, the hot parts were various forms of nimonic—‘Hastalloy’, ‘Waspalloy’ (Registered Trade names of ‘Special Metals Group), which is a nickel alloy in various guises.

Materials have moved on.  We still use nimonics in conjunction with crystals for turbine blades but there is increasing use of lighter and stronger metals like titanium.  There is also more use being made of composites here and there on colder parts.

[NB: The ‘colder’ parts are not all ‘cold’.  Remember that the temperature of the gas coming off the compressor of a twin spool engine like a ‘Spey’ is around 550°C which is the same temperature as the glowing end of a cigarette when you suck on the other end.]

So where is the ‘breakthrough?  Is it the multi-spool engine like the JT9D or Spey that led to the Triple Spool RB211—a machine of great beauty and elegance?

Is it the development of high by-pass engines for the military airlift aeroplanes?

No, no.  None of these.

Lets go back to the Viper.

No, really!

The Viper was developed from the Adder engine that was developed, in turn, from the Mamba that came from a Metrovick project.  The twin Mamba was successfully installed in the Gannet and the Adder engine was the prototype Saab Draken engine.

‘Power by the Hour’ leasing was started in those days as the Viper had maintenance issues resulting from it being developed as a limited life engine (10 hours) for the Jindivik target drone.  Operators would pay a fixed hourly rate to Bristol Siddeley for the continual maintenance of the engines.

There was one major step forward.

But the main one was that these engines had vaporising burners.  Not a big issue.  Vaporising, hockey stick, burners were very efficient but hard to start so atomising burners (4) were used as well to start the engine and get the vaporising burners going.  The atomising burners would remain burning while the engine was running.

How is that a major leap forward?

Because they were in an annular combustion chamber.

Why is that so significant?

This engine, like the constant volume engine and the external combustion engine is a heat cycle machine.  It relies for its effectiveness and operation on the addition of heat energy.

Irrespective of the temperature of the gas coming off the compressor, fuel is burnt in the combustion chamber in order to add (heat) energy to the working fluid (air).

Separate combustion cylinders and can-annular (cannular) systems are limited to the number of burners they can hold and control—in terms of flame shape; this includes multiple burner systems on early Pratt & Whitney engines.

But annular chambers can have as many burners as you can fit in them.  This means you can add as much heat as the engine will take without a disproportionate increase in temperature.

Now, from that, we leap forward.  Old engines ran at 10:1 compression ratios.  It was thought that the maximum possible would be around 20:1 before all sorts of problems occurred.

Now we are running at over 40:1 compression ratio on a routine basis.  We have high by-pass engines where 80% of the airflow is going down the by-pass duct and doing most of the work and that means that the fan is being driven by 20% of the airflow in a small core engine.

Huge amounts of power are generated in the core turbine to drive the big fans which means that the pressure ratios must be higher, the temperatures are higher, the stresses are higher.

All this is possible because the amount of heat that can be added is exponentially increased by the use of annular combustion chambers

And that, dear friends, is all thanks to Bristol Siddeley and the humble, disposable, Viper engine.

By 'The Book'

Recently I have been speaking about safety.  I have said, time and again, to the point, no doubt, of boredom, that there is only one way to work on aeroplanes.

The right way.

Is 'The Book' always right?  How often have you read an entry in the Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM) and wondered if there could be a 'better way'?

Rarely, one hopes.  If you analyse 'your way' you may, very often, find that there is a flaw in your analysis or sequence of events for a particular task.

Sometimes events occur that highlight a flaw in the system.  A system that we have, hitherto, considered flawless.

The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board in the United States) has written a letter to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) pointing out something that should have been obvious from the very start of commercial aviation and yet...

http://1.usa.gov/pLRZmM

This is very well worth reading, it will take a few minutes of your valuable time but make the effort.

We are not only concerned with what it is saying about this specific point but also we should consider the ramifications on everything else that we do.

Next time you work on an aeroplane  -  and by 'work' I am not just referring to maintenance people (wonderful souls though we undeniably are) but to flight crews, cabin crews, baggage handlers, catering delivery people, fuel tanker drivers, etc., and say to yourselves, "Am I missing something obvious?  Is what I am doing safe?  Is it safe for me, for the aeroplane, for other people?"

"IS IT SAFE?"

Flying is, inherently, safe.  Modern aircraft design and materials make it so.  Humans working on it reduce that level of security.

Working to 'The Book' should prevent that reduction.

Check.

Does it?