Effectiveness of Additives in Improving Fuel Lubricity and Preventing Pump Failure at High Temperature

Abstract : Stanadyne rotary injection pump tests were conducted to determine the effectiveness of using approved MIL-PRF-25107 DCI4-A, NALCO5403 corrosion improver/lubricity improver (CI/LI) and a commercial diesel lubricity improver in selected concentrations in improving fuel lubricity and preventing premature pump failures at temperatures of 104 deg F (40 deg C), 135 deg F (57 deg C), and 170 deg F. Certification 2007 Diesel, Jet A, FT-SPK neat and FT-SPK blended with Jet A were used to perform a total of 21 tests. Evaluations determined that diesel fuel and clay treated diesel fuel operated for 1000-hours will reveal detrimental effects on fuel injection pump specification performance. Jet A-1 aviation kerosene fuel and FTSPK fuel unblended without any CI/LI Additives should not be used in rotary, fuel-lubricated, fuel injection pumps. CI/LI Additives greatly Improve Durability of both Jet A-1 fuel and the alternative aviation fuel FT-SPK at relatively low concentrations. All additives showed substantial improvements in fuel injection pump durability when blended with aviation kerosene fuel. MIL-PRF-25017 additives perform better in aviation kerosene fuels than a Commercial Diesel Fuel additive, and at lower concentrations. MIL-PRF-25017 Additive DCI-4A performed slightly better than the other additives evaluated.