Investigating renewable and sustainable biofuel and biofuel/diesel blends utilizations in a turboshaft engine used on helicopters

Abstract

In this study, biofuel, various biofuel/diesel blends and jet fuel are used in the turboshaft engine (TSE) of a helicopter. The analyses of thermodynamics, sustainability, environmental and cost formation are applied to the system, and the impacts of biofuel (B100) & its blends with diesel (B10D90, B20D80, B50D50) are compared with JP-8 jet fuel (JF100) and each other. TSE's energy efficiency is computed to be 25.18 %, while the exergy efficiency depending on the fuel type (from maximum to minimum) are found as JF100 (JP-8) (23.462 %) > B10D90 (23.367 %) > B20D80 (23.365 %) > B50D50 (23.359 %) > B100 (23.351 %). The exergy efficiency of the biofuel and its blends are slightly lower than the conventional jet fuel. However, the difference is lower than 1 %. So, the biofuel and its blends can be effectively used in the TSE of the helicopter. Sustainable efficiency factor rates of TSE are also very close for jet fuel (1.307) and biofuel & its blends (1.305). So, exergetic sustainability of the studied fuels are close to each other and they can be used in the helicopter engine in a sustainable way. Biofuel and its blends utilization can also reduce the environmental cost, specific environmental cost, social impact cost, specific social impact cost of CO2 for TSE.