NASA is developing technology to help prevent airliner
fuel tank fires or explosions. Four contracts, awarded by
NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, may reduce airliner
fuel tank fire and explosion hazards.
The four contracts, totaling approximately $400,000, have
been awarded to Creare Engineering, Inc., Hanover, N.H.;
Essex Cryogenics Inc., St. Louis; Honeywell Environmental
Controls Systems, Torrance, Calif.; and Valcor Engineering,
Springfield, N.J.
“The companies will study how to reduce flammability in fuel
tanks by replacing oxygen with a gas that won’t support
combustion,” said Clarence Chang, manager of the fire
prevention element of Glenn’s Accident Mitigation Project.
“The purpose is to prevent the kind of explosion that in
recent years brought down TWA flight 800 and destroyed two
other airliners at overseas locations,” he said.
Phase I of the contracts, lasting five months, is a study and
feasibility determination of improved on-board inert gas
generation system and on-board oxygen generation system
methods and the design of demonstration systems. If Phase I
is successful, actual hardware fabrication and testing will
take place during Phase II.
Specifically, the research is in response to the National
Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations, resulting from
fatal center wing fuel tank explosions. The technology
developed is intended to reduce the flammability and chance
for explosion in an airplane’s center wing tank, which is
located under the passenger cabin next to the wings.
The Accident Mitigation Project is part of NASA’s Aviation
Safety Program, managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center,
Hampton, Va. This project is working with the Federal
Aviation Administration to develop technologies to improve
aviation safety.
