Abstract
Fuel leakage has the risk of being ignited by external ignition sources, and therefore it is important to detect any fuel leakage before the departure of the aircraft. Currently, there are no fuel leak detection systems installed on commercial aircrafts, to detect fuel tank leakage, while only a small number of more recent aircraft, have a fuel monitoring system, that generates a fuel leak-warning message in cockpit in the case of fuel imbalance between the tanks. The approach proposed in this paper requires the fuel vent ports on the wings to be replaced with fuel vent valves, which can be controlled to be in open or close position. The fuel vent valve will be in close position, when certain conditions are fulfilled (all the related fuel valves closed, pumps not operating, etc.), the fuel tank ullage area is then pressurized to 4 psi and the rate of change of the pressure is measured over a period. Several experiments have been conducted and, the result show that a continuous fuel leak of one liter per minute can be detected. Further experiments show that if the fuel tank is pressurized to higher pressures, a fuel leak can be detected sooner.
Highlights
There have been several incidents of fuel tank explosion on commercial transport airplanes, which in some cases, have resulted in loss of lives and aircraft
Experts predict that fuel tank explosions on commercial airplanes could escalate due to increased number of electrically operated components inside fuel tanks, such as booster pumps, quantity probes, level sensors, fuel valves, etc
The U.S Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) states that in order to reduce the risk of fuel tank explosion on large transport aircrafts, any internal or external ignition source inside fuel tanks must be eliminated
Summary
There have been several incidents of fuel tank explosion on commercial transport airplanes, which in some cases, have resulted in loss of lives and aircraft. For safety reason nitrogen is used to pressurize the fuel tanks and fuel system, ambient air can be used to perform leak check on water/pneumatic/hydraulic/ oil pipelines and associated systems, using the proposed technique. Any hot bleed air leakage could result into a loss of engine thrust and in order to compensate, the fuel controller increases the fuel flow to the engine, resulting in higher operational costs It is important, to perform a leak check on the pneumatic ducts before aircraft departure. Following the TWA flight 800 crash in 1996, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB) attributed the accident to the explosion of the center fuel tank This accident led to the introduction of new regulations by the Federal Airworthiness Authority (FAA) to reduce ignition sources inside fuel tank. The proposed design can be implemented at little cost, while greatly increasing flight safety
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