Basic Fuel Management for Aircraft circa 1988 Federal Aviation Administration Pilot Training Film

• published: 30 Jul 2015
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more at: http://scitech.quickfound.net/aviation_news_and_search.html Overview of general aviation fuels, fuel systems and proper adjustment of fuel to air ratio to extend range. Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air–fuel_ratio Air–fuel ratio (AFR) is the mass ratio of air to fuel present in a combustion process such as in an internal combustion engine or industrial furnace. If exactly enough air is provided to completely burn all of the fuel, the ratio is known as the stoichiometric mixture, often abbreviated to stoic. For precise AFR calculations, the oxygen content of combustion air should be specified because of possible dilution by ambient water vapor, or enrichment by oxygen additions. The AFR is an important measure for anti-pollution and performance-tuning reasons. The lower the AFR, the "richer" the mixture... Synopsis In theory a stoichiometric mixture has just enough air to completely burn the available fuel. In practice this is never quite achieved, due primarily to the very short time available in an internal combustion engine for each combustion cycle. Most of the combustion process completes in approximately 4–5 milliseconds at an engine speed of 6,000 rpm. (100 revolutions per second; 10 milliseconds per revolution) This is the time that elapses from when the spark is fired until the burning of the fuel–air mix is essentially complete after some 80 degrees of crankshaft rotation. Catalytic converters are designed to work best when the exhaust gases passing through them are the result of nearly perfect combustion. A stoichiometric mixture unfortunately burns very hot and can damage engine components if the engine is placed under high load at this fuel–air mixture. Due to the high temperatures at this mixture, detonation of the fuel–air mix shortly after maximum cylinder pressure is possible under high load (referred to as knocking or pinging). Detonation can cause serious engine damage as the uncontrolled burning of the fuel air mix can create very high pressures in the cylinder. As a consequence, stoichiometric mixtures are only used under light load conditions. For acceleration and high load conditions, a richer mixture (lower air–fuel ratio) is used to produce cooler combustion products and thereby prevent detonation and overheating of the cylinder head. Engine management systems The stoichiometric mixture for a gasoline engine is the ideal ratio of air to fuel that burns all fuel with no excess air. For gasoline fuel, the stoichiometric air–fuel mixture is about 15:1 i.e. for every one gram of fuel, 15 grams of air are required... Any mixture greater than ~15 to 1 is considered a lean mixture; any less than ~15 to 1 is a Rich mixture – given perfect (ideal) "test" fuel (gasoline consisting of solely n-heptane and iso-octane). In reality, most fuels consist of a combination of heptane, octane, a handful of other alkanes, plus additives including detergents, and possibly oxygenators such as MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) or ethanol/methanol. These compounds all alter the stoichiometric ratio, with most of the additives pushing the ratio downward (oxygenators bring extra oxygen to the combustion event in liquid form that is released at time of combustions; for MTBE-laden fuel, a stoichiometric ratio can be as low as 14.1:1). Vehicles that use an oxygen sensor or other feedback loop to control fuel to air ratio (lambda control), compensate automatically for this change in the fuel's stoichiometric rate by measuring the exhaust gas composition and controlling fuel volume. Vehicles without such controls (such as most motorcycles until recently, and cars predating the mid-1980s) may have difficulties running certain fuel blends (especially winter fuels used in some areas) and may require different jets (or otherwise have the fueling ratios altered) to compensate. Vehicles that use oxygen sensors can monitor the air–fuel ratio with an air–fuel ratio meter...