Aviation Fuel Tank Lorry that Degases DO

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Did you know that every plane is equipped with a so called fuel tank inerting system that is used to suppress the oxygen concentration at low level to prevent an unexpected explosion accident? Yes, every airplane has all that to secure the aviation traffic safety, based on the guideline by FAA.

What I want to propose is that instead of having that kind of expensive system on board, why not eliminate the dissolved oxygen in the fuel ahead of being pumped to the airplane. Between the time of the tank being filled up and that of filling the plane fuel tank? Is it possible? I think so. Please find the case with water in my presentations at ASTFE TFEC-2022-41702 and at HEFAT-ATE 2022 (paper number not designated). Once it is realized, all the aviation fuel can be degassed at the airport ground before it is charged to the airplane tanks. Then? Passenger safety issues are cleared in advance and the inerting system may serve as an emergency backup or ???

Approach:
Make the fuel tank to be pressure-proved down to, for example, 0.1 atm or lower by vacuum pump or an equivalent counter measure, and generate (micro-) bubbles through a nozzle or nozzles connected to submersible liquid pump(s). Massive bubbles would come out in a very short time, the content of which is basically the dissolved gases. Through the experiments with water, the DO concentration of 0.3 tons of water was lowered close to 5% atm in 30 minutes with 30W DC pump.

With a tank lorry with 3~5 tons, a system design needs to be done with the allowed time limit for degassing, for example, 30 minutes or less. I hope this idea can draw FAA's attention in order to secure passenger safety worldwide.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Yong Du Jun
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Educator
  • Yong Du is inspired by:
    Got to know there was a big aviation accident in the past due to A/C explosion and there had been many studies on how to prevent it. I used to work with students on solar aeration for polluted water recovery in lakes and rivers. To do experiments we needed to degassing for repeated testing. At the beginning we used nitrogen, but later on we got to know that by vacuuming the tank bubbling was a lot easier.
  • Software used for this entry:
    Auto Cad
  • Patent status:
    patented