Emissions Characteristics of a Legacy Military Aircraft

Abstract

Emissions from aircraft and associated ground equipment are major sources of local pollution at airports and military bases. These pollutant emissions, especially particulate matter (PM), have been receiving significant attention lately due to their proven harmful health and environmental effects. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tightens environmental standards, it is likely that military operations, including the basing of advanced and legacy aircraft, will be impacted. Accurate determination of emission indices from aircraft is necessary to properly assess their environmental burden. As such, the gaseous and PM emissions of a B-52 Stratofortress aircraft were characterized in this effort. This emissions study supports the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) project WP-1401 to determine emissions factors from military aircraft. The main purpose of the project is to develop a comprehensive emissions measurement program using both conventional and advanced techniques to determine emissions factors for pollutants of fixed and rotating wing military aircraft. Standard practices for the measurement of gaseous emissions from aircraft have been well established; however, there is no certified methodology for the measurement of aircraft PM emissions. In this study, several conventional aerosol instruments were employed to physically characterize the PM emissions from two of the aircraft’s TF33 turbofan engines. Exit plane pollutant emissions were extracted via probes and transported through heated lines to the analytical instruments. Particle concentrations, size distributions and mass emissions, as well as engine smoke numbers (SN), soot volatile fraction and total hydrocarbon emissions were measured. The engines were tested at four power settings, from idle to 75% normal rated thrust (NRT) (95% N2 – turbine speed). Test results show relatively consistent PM and gaseous emissions between the two engines for most conditions tested. The measured TF33 PM mass emission indices (EI), including estimated sampling line losses, were in the range of 1.0–3.0 g/kg-fuel and the particle number (PN) EI were between 4.0–10.0E+15 particles/kg-fuel. The particle size data followed a single mode lognormal distribution for all power settings with particle geometric mean diameters ranging from 52 to 85 nm. In general, the aerosol instrumentation provided consistent and reliable measurements throughout the test campaign, therefore increasing confidence on their use for turbine engine PM emissions measurements.