Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Can water exist in suspension in Avgas?

And if you do get water in your sirocco’s fuel system the trick is to run ethanol through it to get the water out.

Forever learning
EGTB

That, however, should absolutely not happen with clean avgas, whose freezing point is way below that.

So why does it happen to you?

You either have accumulating water somewhere, or your avgas has water in it.

An Aztec cannot possibly be airworthy if an engine stops below -20C. There has to be something severely wrong with your fuel system.

I have flown for hours at -35C or so, without any issues. That’s without the electric fuel pump or alternate air. But it was nearly always in VMC.

Last Edited by Peter at 12 Jul 18:09
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I have had many engine failures due to fuel icing. I can pretty much guarantee that if I fly for an hour at < -20°C my right engine will stop.

However, if I use IPA (similar to Prist, but less corrosive and dangerous) I never get fuel icing.

I now use 1% IPA at all times. It is the same price as Avgas anyway, so it doesn’t matter, except for minor inconvenience.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Probably not low enough in the context of IFR flight which can easily see -20C, however.

According to this a mixture of 60% ethylene glycol and 40% water freezes at -45°C, which is interestingly less than pure water or pure ethylene glycol.

According to this, gasoline dissolves about 0.1% water. I cannot find any treatment of gasoline freezing characteristics versus dissolved water, so I cannot imagine this being a problem.

However, there are a lot of articles about water in gasoline-ethanol mixes, where water creates a solution with ethanol and this solution separates from the gasoline.

So if I were you I’d be more concerned about water in your Scirocco’s tank.

Last Edited by tomjnx at 06 Jul 10:25
LSZK, Switzerland

Probably not low enough in the context of IFR flight which can easily see -20C, however.

BTW I didn’t think the freezing point was very pressure dependent. The boiling point is massively so, however. I vaguely recall the “steam tables” from college

The BA problem was caused by a filter.

Was it?

Last Edited by Peter at 06 Jul 06:45
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

which it is guaranteed to do below 0C (exactly)

Firstly it’s not exactly 0°C, but depends (very slightly) on pressure, secondly that applies only to pure water.

Water in a solution can have a significantly lower freezing point if an antifreeze agent is added. Since popular antifreeze agents such as ethylene glycol are carbohydrates relatively similar to gasoline, I’d expect a solution of a little bit of water with fuel to freeze significantly below 0°C.

LSZK, Switzerland

Did you fill up the bottle 100% and put a lid on? It could be water vapor in the air condensing.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

The BA problem was caused by a filter. Interestingly the Meridian has a filter bypass if it gets blocked. The argument being that if the filter is restricting flow you would prefer unfiltered fuel instead of no fuel.

Last Edited by JasonC at 05 Jul 22:30
EGTK Oxford

Sure (about water injection into the combustion chamber) but if an engine stops due to water in the fuel it happens because the fuel path has become blocked (by ice or sludge), not because water has found its way into the combustion chamber.

Incidentally I am sure water injection systems have protection from the water in the tubing freezing, which it is guaranteed to do below 0C (exactly)

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I can’t tell the size of the droplets visbible in the photo but they look very small to me. I can’t see how a few tiny droplets can cause a problem. Water injection has been used for a very long time to cool the intake charge of high powered engines to prevent detonation. If I remember correctly this can be more than 10% of the total fuel flow by volume which is a lot more than a few drops. The watertanks held tens of gallons in WWII engine installations.

Link

EHLE
17 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top