Significant emphasis has been placed on fuel-tank safety since the TWA Flight 800 accident in July 1996. Fuel-tank inerting has been studied as a method of reducing the likelihood of an explosion within a commercial transport fuel tank. Recently, a fuel-tank-inerting working group was formed by the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC) in response to a task assigned by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to evaluate a rule change that would require a reduction in commercial transport airplane fuel-tank flammability with an emphasis on center wing and body style tanks. A previous ARAC working group found that the most potentially cost-effective method of fuel-tank-flammability reduction is ground-based inerting (GBI), which is defined as inerting fuel tanks during ground operations. This protection is believed to extend into ground and flight operations, depending on fuel load and flight profile. Although significant research has been performed to quantify the ability of nitrogen or nitrogen-enriched air (NEA) to inert a commercial transport fuel tank, GBI has never been attempted in an operational aircraft.
展开▼
