US 2025/0059922 A1 · FUEL DELIVERY

Abstract

A gas turbine engine for an aircraft includes a staged combustion system having pilot fuel injectors and main fuel injectors. The gas turbine engine further includes a fuel delivery regulator arranged to control delivery of fuel to the pilot and main fuel injectors, and a fuel characteristic determination module configured to determine one or more fuel characteristics of the fuel being supplied to the staged combustion system. A controller is configured to determine a staging point defining the point at which the staged combustion system is switched between pilot-only operation and pilot-and-main operation, the staging point being determined based on the determined one or more fuel characteristics, the controller being configured to control the staged combustion system according to the determined staging point.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer implemented method of determining a fuel allocation for a mission carried out by an aircraft, the mission being supplied with fuel from a fuel source comprising an amount of a default fuel and an amount of a non-default fuel, the fuel allocation indicating the amount of the non-default fuel and the amount of the default fuel to be allocated to the mission, the default fuel and the non-default fuel having one or more fuel characteristics different from each other, the method comprising:

obtaining an initial proposed fuel allocation for the mission;
performing an optimisation in which the initial proposed fuel allocation for the mission is modified within the constraints of the total available default and/or non-default fuel from the fuel source to reduce a nvPM impact parameter, the nvPM impact parameter being determined according to a proposed fuel usage for the mission, the fuel usage defining how the fuel allocation for the mission is to be used during that mission;
and
determining the fuel allocation for the mission based on the optimisation.

1 more element

A fuel allocation determination system for determining a fuel allocation for a mission carried out by an aircraft, the mission being supplied with fuel from a fuel source comprising an amount of a default fuel and an amount of a non-default fuel, the fuel allocation indicating the amount of the non-default fuel and the amount of the default fuel to be allocated to the mission, the default fuel and the non-default fuel having one or more fuel characteristics different from each other, the system comprising:

an initial proposed fuel allocation obtaining module configured to obtain an initial proposed fuel allocation for the mission;
an optimisation module configured to perform an optimisation in which the initial proposed fuel allocation for the mission is modified within the constraints of the total available default and/or non-default fuel from the fuel source to reduce a nvPM impact parameter, the nvPM impact parameter being determined according to a proposed fuel usage for the mission, the fuel usage defining how the fuel allocation for the mission is to be used during that mission;
and
a fuel allocation determination module configured to determine the fuel allocation for the mission based on the optimisation.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Fuel delivery

Life of this patent

Fuel delivery

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20