AFT Awarded Phase I US Army Contract for UHP-IFI System for JP8 Fuel

In brief: Alternative Fuel Technologies has been awarded a Phase 1 SBIR contract from the U.S. Army to concept design and demonstrate an ultra-high pressure, intensified fuel injection system (UHP-IFI) for jet fuels at 40,000 psi.

The word

In order to improve the thermal efficiency and fuel economy of jet engines, whether the fuel is standard JP-8 or biofuel, it must be injected at very high pressures.

The goal of AFT is to provide modeling to show that JP-8 can be injected at 40,000psi (2750 bar) safely and efficiency before moving to a new phase of actually making and field testing a system for it.

Current engines in use by the Army are limited to about 30,000psi or less. By increasing the pressure and making the engines more efficient, the Army believes that they can lower maintenance costs and increase fuel efficiencies in their aircraft.

And so ...

This is similar to the struggles many carmakers had with the fuel injection systems of the early cars.

Photo credits: AFT