Water behavior of current jet fuel versus operating conditions: Storage time, temperature, relative humidity and anti-icing agent

Abstract Water contamination in aviation jet fuel has been a particular concern throughout the aviation industry for many decades on account of any contaminating water may accelerate the corrosion of the aircraft fuel systems, diminish the lubricative properties of the fuel, promote microorganism growth, and more importantly, pose threat to flight safety. However, the water behavior of jet fuel has not been studied systematically so far, especially for the free water, which is the main factor that causes the hazards mentioned above. Herein, the water behaviors, including dissolved and free water behaviors versus storage time, temperature, relative humidity and anti-icing agent are investigated. Compared with storage time, temperature and relative humidity have a greater influence on the water solubility, and the respective exponential and linear relationships between the solubility of water and temperature and relative humidity are identified in this paper. Furthermore, a complete discussion is carried out on the effect of anti-icing agent on the solubility of water and free water content in jet fuel. More importantly, the real water behavior of jet fuel with anti-icing agent is also studied through simulating the variation in temperature during flight.