GB687872A - Improvements in or relating to aircraft power unit installations - Google Patents

Abstract

687,872. Aircraft fuel tanks and de-icing appliances. NAPIER & SON. Ltd., D. July 24, 1951. [July 25, 1950] No. 18564/50. Class 4. [Also in Group XXVII] An aircraft power unit installation comprises at least one fuel storage tank, an engine to which the fuel is to be delivered, a pump arranged to cause fuel to flow in a circuit from the storage tank through a heat exchanger arranged to heat the fuel and through a chamber arranged adjacent to the leading edge of an aircraft wing back into the storage tank, and a passage through which fuel is led to the fuel supply apparatus of the engine from a point in the circuit on the outlet side of the heat exchanger. The installation includes tanks A and A3 interconnected bv a non-return valve A<SP>1</SP>, the tank A having a baffle A4 which forms the inner boundary of a fuel supply passage, the upper end A<SP>5</SP> of which is open to the body of the tank, the lower end having an inlet A6 connected to a fuel pipe F4. Intermediate its ends the pipe F4 carries a connection F5 to the engine fuel supply apparatus and at its other end, F3, is connected to a heat exchanger E in turn connected at F2 by pipe Fl, to an electrically driven pump G coupled to the tank A3 by a pipe F. The heat exchanger may be supplied with engine cooling liquid or hot lubricating oil or hot air or exhaust gases. In the arrangement shown the exchanger E is connected by pipes D, D1 to a circulatory engine cooling system C5 in which C is a header tank, Cl are pumps and C4 is a radiator. A thermostatic control valve H maintains the temperature of the coolant constant. The arrangement of the fuel supply passage at the upper leading edge of the tank has the advantage that it tends to prevent the accretion of ice on the leading edge surfaces of the wings.