Introduction of a Supercritical Kerosene Test Bench Based on One-Stage Electric Heater with Large Current
A kind of supercritical kerosene heat transfer test bench was introduced in this article. It uses large current to heat the stainless steel tube directly and then the kerosene flowing inside the tube can be heated. A kind of needle valve is used to adjust the kerosene mass flow rate and a kind of backpressure valve is used to adjust the pressure inside the test tube. Insulating materials are laid at the two sides of the tube to prevent electrical leakage. Heat flux is calculated by measurements of the voltage and current. Kerosene is rapidly heated to high temperatures while the wall temperature is below the safety limit by increasing the tube length and thickness. The electric heater could effectively simulate the heat flux of a scramjet engine chamber with a maximum power of about 28KW. Kerosene within 15g/s could be quickly heated to 1000K with this system.
Fuel-Cooled Thermal Management for Advanced Aeroengines
Fuel-cooled thermal management, including endothermic cracking and reforming of hydrocarbon fuels, is an enabling technology for advanced aero engines and offers potential for cycle improvements and pollutant emissions control in gas turbine engine applications. The successful implementation of this technology is, however, predicated on the use of conventional multicomponent hydrocarbon fuels and an understanding of the combustion characteristics of the reformed fuel mixture. The objective of this research is to develop and demonstrate the technologies necessary for utilizing conventional multicomponent hydrocarbon fuels for fuel-cooled thermal management, including the development of the endothermic potential of JP-7 and JP-8 +100, a demonstration of the combustion of supercritical/endothermic fuel mixtures, and conceptual design of a fuel-air heat exchanger. The ability to achieve high heat sinks with existing jet fuels (e.g., JP-7 and JP-8 +100) was demonstrated with a bench-scale test rig operating under flow conditions and passage geometries simulative of practical heat exchangers for aircraft and missile applications. Key measurements included fuel heat sink, reaction products, and extent of conversion: Full-scale sector rig tests were conducted to characterize the combustion and emissions of supercritical jet fuel, and demonstrate the safety and operability of the fuel system, including a fuel-air heat exchanger.
New method for analysis of enzymatic reactions: Thermolysin-catalyzed synthesis of aspartame precursor
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener which is 200 times sweeter than sucrose. A precursor of aspartame, N-(benzyloxycarbonyl)-l-aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester (Z-APM) was synthesized and hydrolyzed with thermolysin in an aqueous monophasic system. Graphical plotting methods and/or nonlinear regression have been used to analyze enzymatic reactions because of the nonlinearity of enzymatic rate equations. There are, however, problems: the former require accurate measurement of the initial reaction rate and the latter gives no analytical information. The authors proposed a method to solve the nonlinear enzymatic rate equations with respect to the concentration of a product with the Taylor expansion, especially for the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism (Murakami, Y., Hirata, M., and Hirata, A., J. Ferment. Bioeng., 82, 246–252, 1996). This solution, however, is complex for practical use. In this paper, a simpler solution to explain the thermolysin-catalyzed synthesis of Z-APM is obtained. New methods to determine the kinetic parameters, especially for the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism, based on the approximated solution are proposed. The results calculated using the obtained kinetic parameters can satisfactorily explain the experimental results, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed analysis. We must know the relation between the concentrations of substrates and a product, and accurately evaluate of the result obtained using Taylor expansion when we determine the kinetic parameters using our newly developed methods. The methods to determine the kinetic parameters of the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism described in this paper is, however, expected to be applied to general enzymatic reactions.