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When will a diesel be available for my aircraft? |
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News, facts, and comments on the coming revolution for piston-engine aircraft.
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News of August 04, 2009Some good news for aero-diesel from OshkoshDieselAir attended the EAA Air Venture in Oshkosh, which was a major success as you can read in leading media. Andre Teissier-duCros’ lecture on Why Aero Diesel Will Be Dominant 30 Years from Now had an audience of 119, and was repeated the next day for a private restricted audience. Regarding the future of aero-diesel engines, the climate was favorable too. What transpires most clearly is the tight link between the short term future of diesel and the one of leaded Avgas. All experts we talked to seem to agree that leaded Avgas has only a few years more to survive in the US. What will replace it is not yet clear but the options are: Probable: A Non-Leaded 95 Octane Avgas very close to present Mogas which could be digested by all existing engines, the most modern engines being offered kits to make them compatible with this fuel. It seems that Lycoming and Continental are working on such kits. It is not yet clear whether they will be possible for absolutely all existing engines. They will come at a cost. This will anyway accelerate the scrapping of a large U. S. fleet of older piston engine planes, probably some 50,000, which are still officially airworthy but are presently hardly flying at all. Possible: A Non-Leaded 100 Octane gas obtained from addition either of Ethanol or from some Syngas. Ethanol seems highly improbable because it causes very destructive corrosion at the very high temperature of an air-cooled high performance turbocharged engine, while it is better tolerated in a water-cooled, low temperature automobile engine. Syngas is possible. Both however would mean a fuel much costlier to produce. One thing for sure therefore, a Non-Leaded Avgas at 100 Octane will be very expensive. Certain: A diesel airplane will avoid this dilemma and burn Jetfuel. However the industry faces here a theoretical risk that future Jetfuel also incorporating some kind of added-on Synfuels would suffer a drop of Cetane rating. Cetane rating measures the flammability of diesel fuel, therefore the speed at which it ignites under compression, and conditions therefore the design of an aero diesel. Presently all aero-diesels accept a Cetane rating of 30+ with a lot of flexibility. Turbines, benefiting a constant continuous combustion, are indifferent to Cetane rating. Would it be possible that Jetfuel would gradually evolve to a rating of 20+? We doubt it, considering the huge amount of Jetfuel produced, consumed, and available worldwide. But stay tuned… Syngas or Synfuel, if not of biotech origin (Ethanol, Methanol, Swift fuel or other), refers to a synthetic hydrocarbon produced from coal as per the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process, click here for more on this, invented in Germany decades ago and perfected since. It works fine since World War II, but one thing for sure: It is costly... posted at 1:17 AM |
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Now read this: Andre's Oshkosh conference to be re...
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