Real-time measurements of jet aircraft engine exhaust

J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 2005 May;55(5):583-93. doi: 10.1080/10473289.2005.10464651.

Abstract

Particulate-phase exhaust properties from two different types of ground-based jet aircraft engines--high-thrust and turboshaft--were studied with real-time instruments on a portable pallet and additional time-integrated sampling devices. The real-time instruments successfully characterized rapidly changing particulate mass, light absorption, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) content. The integrated measurements included particulate-size distributions, PAH, and carbon concentrations for an entire test run (i.e., "run-integrated" measurements). In all cases, the particle-size distributions showed single modes peaking at 20-40nm diameter. Measurements of exhaust from high-thrust F404 engines showed relatively low-light absorption compared with exhaust from a turboshaft engine. Particulate-phase PAH measurements generally varied in phase with both net particulate mass and with light-absorbing particulate concentrations. Unexplained response behavior sometimes occurred with the real-time PAH analyzer, although on average the real-time and integrated PAH methods agreed within the same order of magnitude found in earlier investigations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Air Pollutants / analysis*
  • Aircraft*
  • Environmental Monitoring / methods*
  • Particle Size
  • Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons / analysis
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Vehicle Emissions / analysis*

Substances

  • Air Pollutants
  • Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
  • Vehicle Emissions