Fuel on Board System For General Aviation Aircraft Michael Dreher-Byrd Robert Fulling Melissa Davis Matthew Plourde

Background - In 2010, there were 36 accidents and 5 deaths caused by fuel mismanagement in GA aircraft [1][2]. - The Federal Aviation Administration requires general aviation aircraft to display zero after all usable fuel is gone [3]

Objective -The purpose of the fuel on board project is to design an economical fuel measurement system for general aviation aircraft that will measure and display the mass of usable fuel inside a tank within ± 3% error. -We have decided to build and test two designs; the capacitor, and the float

Capacitance - Install two tubes into the tank for a diverse reading - Tank penetration into top of the tank for precise placement in the tank - Display fuel on board based upon capacitance measured

Floats - Three potentiometer floats and arms at the top of the tank measure an average of fuel throughout the tank - Raw data will be received through the fuel cap - Displays the average of the three independent measurement of fuel remaining.

Patents ●Patent permissions are not needed for the testing of the designs we have come up with ●Commercializing either concept however, would require licenses from patent owners or designing around patents

Fuel Tank Simulator ●A cooler with water in a wheelbarrow can simulate pitch and roll ●Using smartphone accelerometers we can record the values in the test tank simulation ●The float and capacitance prototypes will measure the water inside the cooler ●The water leaving the cooler will be weighed as time progresses and subtracted from the full-tank value. This will be used to show “actual fuel” remaining values ●The prototypes values for water remaining will be compared to the actual as time progresses.

Gantt

Works Cited [1] Joseph E Burnside, “Fuel Totalizers: EI, JPI are top values”, The Aviation Consumer, Vol. 38, pp , Mar [2] National Transportation Safety Board (2012, Oct.). Review of US Civil Aviation Accidents - Calendar Year [Online]. Available: [3] Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook-Airframe, United States Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, Oklahoma City, OK, 2012, pp