Modeling of particulate matter creation and evolution in aircraft engines, plumes and particle sampling systems

Environmental and health concerns have recently led to growing efforts to characterize the exhaust gas composition of aircraft engines. Besides major chemical species (N₂, 0₂, C0₂ and H₂0), aircraft engines also emit other species in much lower concentrations but that may also have significant impacts. Particulate Matter (PM) belongs to this category. This thesis presents a model of the microphysical processes leading to the creation of PM and its subsequent interactions with gas phase chemical species in thermodynamic environments typical of aircraft engines and exhaust plumes at ground level. The effects of the turbine and nozzle of an engine on non-volatile PM emissions are addressed first. Results suggest that limited opportunities exist for the modification of the microphysical properties of the non-volatile PM in these environments, leading to the conclusion that the characteristics of the turbine and nozzle of an aircraft engine have little or no influence on aircraft non-volatile emissions. The analysis is then extended downstream to the case of a plume at ground level. Direct comparisons are made to volatile PM measurements obtained from a recent test (APEX). Time-scale arguments are used to suggest that gas to particle conversion at ground level temperatures is a process too slow for volatile particles to exist before the plume reaches the sampling system and thus little if no modification of the PM characteristics should be measured. However, the residence times and temperatures within the sampling system used in APEX are such that significant modification of the PM characteristics within the sampling system is expected.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Dakhel, Pierre Max

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ian Waitz.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/32452

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/32452