A new methodology for fuel mass computation of an operating aircraft

摘要

The paper performs a new computational methodology for an accurate computation of fuel mass inside an aircraft wing during the flight. The computation is carried out using hydrodynamic equations, classically known as Navier-Stokes equations by the CFD community. For this purpose, a computational software is developed, the software computes the fuel mass inside the tank based on experimental data of pressure gages that are inserted in the fuel tank. Actually and for safety reasons, Optical fiber sensor for fluid level sensor detection is used. The optical system consists to an optically controlled acoustic transceiver system which measures the fuel level inside the each compartment of the fuel tank. The system computes fuel volume inside the tank and needs density to compute the total fuel mass. Using optical sensor technique, density measurement inside the tank is required. The method developed in the paper, requires pressure measurements in each tank compartment, the density is then computed based on pressure measurements and hydrostatic assumptions. The methodology is tested using a fuel tank provided by Airbus for time history refueling process.