Free Online Seminar: Autoignition of Aviation Fuels: Highlighting Standards Limitations and Unveiling Thermal Ignition Insights

We are happy to invite you to the free online seminar "“Autoignition of Aviation Fuels: Highlighting Standards Limitations and Unveiling Thermal Ignition Insights” to be given by Dr Charline Fouchier, postdoctoral fellow at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Caltech.

Date: 11 March 2025, from 3:00PM to 04:00PM (Brussels)

The autoignition behavior of aviation fuels is a critical aspect of both safety and performance in various industries, including power generation, petroleum, automotive, chemical, and aerospace. Despite the advancements in fuel formulations, particularly with the rise of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), significant gaps remain in our understanding of their ignition properties. To assess ignition hazards, standardized tests have been established to determine the autoignition temperature (AIT), defined as the minimum temperature at which self-sustaining combustion occurs without the need for an external ignition source, such as a spark or flame.

This seminar will delve into the complexity of autoignition behaviors, emphasizing the limitations of current standards used to characterize autoignition in fuels. We will present results from testing aviation fuels and Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (SPK) using the ASTM-E659 standardized apparatus, a widely accepted tool for measuring AIT. Our findings will demonstrate the substantial effect that molecular structure has on the autoignition temperature but also uncover key limitations inherent to the ASTM apparatus itself leading to inaccurate measurements of the AIT.

To address these limitations, we will showcase an experimental investigation using advanced diagnostic techniques to gain a more nuanced understanding of the combustion process. These new experiments offer insights into the ignition dynamics, providing a deeper look into the critical factors that govern fuel behavior around the AIT. Through these investigations, we aim to offer a more comprehensive view of fuel autoignition, which could lead to improvements in both safety standards and fuel performance in future aviation applications.

This research is part of the HORIZON-MSCA-2021 Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Project # 101063624), conducted in collaboration with the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) with Professor Delphine Laboureur and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) with Professor Joseph Shepherd.

Before registering, please check our eligibility criteria.