Patent Application
20130068704
Fuel systems on aircraft have been known to build up ice inside of the fuel tank, and inside the fuel lines that feed equipment, such as the main engines and/or an auxiliary power unit. An auxiliary power unit is generally a small gas turbine engine that provides power to the aircraft. The power is utilized before the main engines have started, for example.
A source of water that forms the ice can be water already in a saturated fuel, or excess water that may occur due to condensation. There have been instances where the ice build-up in the fuel lines is suddenly released due to flow variations, vibration from turbulence, etc. This may result in a substantial amount of ice particles and/or chunks traveling down the fuel lines toward equipment. This finite quantity of ice could be high enough to obstruct the entrance to the equipment. Examples of the equipment could be a fuel oil heat exchanger, fuel pumps, etc.
An example ice separator device includes an ice separator that removes ice particles from a flow of fuel moving through the ice separator.
An example fuel delivery system for an aircraft includes a fuel tank, and a fuel line communicating fuel from the fuel tank to downstream equipment. An ice separator is positioned upstream of the equipment to remove ice particles that may be flowing with the fuel through the fuel line prior to the ice particles reaching the equipment.
An example method of separating ice particles from fuel includes utilizing movement of the flow of fuel to separate ice particles from flow of fuel delivered from a fuel supply to equipment.
The various features and advantages of the disclosed examples will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the detailed description. The figures that accompany the detailed description can be briefly described as follows:
As shown in
Referring to
Referring to
In another example, a post or another structure (not shown) may extend along the axis A of the device 16 for some distance. In the post example, the flow 10 within the device 16 would spiral around the post.
Referring to
The screen 32 is cone-shaped or any other shape that may maximize the screen's surface area. A nose 34 of the screen 32 is upstream the other portions of the screen 32. The shape of the screen 32 and its positioning relative to the flow 10 encourages ice particles 18 to move across the screen 32 (and away from the nose 34.) This movement helps prevent the ice particles 18 from clogging areas of the screen 32, especially areas near the nose 34.
As appreciated, the screen 32 has holes. In one example, areas of the screen 32 furthest from the nose 34 do not include holes. Ice particles are not able to clog this area because there are no holes to clog. The cone shape of the screen 32 and its positioning relative to the flow 10 encourages ice particles 18 to move across the screen 32 to the areas without holes.
The size of the holes in the screen 32 depends in part on the passage opening in the downstream equipment, such as passages within a fuel-oil heat exchanger. In one specific example, the screen 32 has about 33 percent open area, and the holes are circular and have a diameter of about 0.060 inches (1.52 millimeters).
Referring to
In addition to the examples of
In these techniques, the collected ice will melt in time due to warmer fuel temperatures, or each device can be designed for inspection port and ice drainage provision after cold, long flights with saturated or supersaturated fuel.
Although embodiments have been disclosed, a worker of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that many modifications would come within the scope of this disclosure. Thus, the following claims should be studied.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/536,147, which was filed on 19 Sep. 2011 and is incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61536147 | Sep 2011 | US |
