THE STATE-OF-THE-ART AND THE FUTURE OF WATER MANAGEMENT WITHIN FUEL TANKS

摘要

Water contamination is cited as the most commonly encountered fuel contamination with the most adverse impact on aircraft operation. The current approach of combining good maintenance practice and quality control to prevent and contain the associated problems is deemed not ideal as it is labour and cost intensive. This paper focuses on the study and investigation of methods to manage the water contamination by preventing water from getting into fuel and accumulating within the fuel tank in an attempt to explore potential solutions that preferably require less or no maintenance.The two main sources of water accumulation within fuel tanks were identified as the occurrence of the precipitation of dissolved water in the fuel and condensation of moist-air during aircraft operation. Methods to prevent water accumulation within the fuel tanks are proposed, based on the two sources identified, and their feasibility and challenges, if implemented, are evaluated and discussed in this paper. Two of the methods analysed as a potentially feasible solution, concern the development of new fuel additives and implementation of OBIGGS.