JP-8- THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-THERMAL-STABILITY JET FUEL(100 )

Jet fuel requirements have evolved over the years as a balance of the demands placed by advanced aircraft performance (technological need), fuel cost (economic factors), and fuel availability (strategic factors ). In a modern aircraft, the jet fuel not only provides the propulsive energy for flight, but also is the primary coolant for aircraft and e ngine subsystems. To meet the evolving challenge of improving the cool ing potential of jet fuel while maintaining the current availability a l a minimal price increase, the U.S. Air Force, industry and academia have teamed to develop an additive package for JP-8 fuels. This paper describes the development of an additive package for JP-8, to produce ''JP-8+100.'' This new fuel offers a 55 degrees C (100 degrees F) incr ease in the bulk maximum temperature (from 325 degrees F to 425 degree s F) and improves the heat sink capability by 50 percent. Major advanc es made during the development of JP-8+100 fuel include the developmen t of several new quantitative fuel analysis tests, a free radical theo ry of autooxidation, adaptation of new chemistry models to computation al fluid dynamics programs, and a nonparametric statistical analysis t o evaluate thermal stability. Hundreds of additives were tested for ef fectiveness, and a package of additives was then formulated for JP-8 f uel. This package has been tested for fuel system materials compatibil ity and general fuel applicability to date, the flight testing has sho wn an improvement in thermal stability of JP-8 fuel. This improvement has resulted in a significant reduction. in fuel-related maintenance c osts and a threefold increase in mean time between fuel-related failur es. In this manner, a novel high-thermal-stability jet fuel for the 21 st century has been successfully developed.