Technical Paper
Increasing the Lubricity of JP-8 to Fuel Two-stroke Spark Ignition Engines for Midsized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
2011-04-12
2011-01-0332
In order to satisfy the single-fuel initiative, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has the need for engines in the 20 to 50 hp range to power midsized Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) able to operate on JP-8 “heavy” fuel. It may be possible to convert two-stroke engines designed to operate on a gasoline-oil mixture to run on JP-8; however, one concern is that using JP-8 in lieu of the original fuel mixture will have an impact on engine lubrication. The research described in this paper investigated the lubricity of JP-8 and S-8 (synthetic heavy fuel) and compared it to the lubricity of a gasoline and lubricating oil combination typically used in two-stroke engines. In addition, three lubricity agents, synthetic lubricating oil, B100 biodiesel, and Military Specification engine oil, were added to heavy fuel and the resulting lubricity measured.
