Volcanic ash melting under conditions relevant to ash turbine interactions

Abstract

The ingestion of volcanic ash by jet engines is widely recognized as a potentially fatal hazard for aircraft operation. The high temperatures (1,200-2,000 °C) typical of jet engines exacerbate the impact of ash by provoking its melting and sticking to turbine parts. Estimation of this potential hazard is complicated by the fact that chemical composition, which affects the temperature at which volcanic ash becomes liquid, can vary widely amongst volcanoes. Here, based on experiments, we parameterize ash behaviour and develop a model to predict melting and sticking conditions for its global compositional range. The results of our experiments confirm that the common use of sand or dust proxy is wholly inadequate for the prediction of the behaviour of volcanic ash, leading to overestimates of sticking temperature and thus severe underestimates of the thermal hazard. Our model can be used to assess the deposition probability of volcanic ash in jet engines.