"Tarver Engineering" wrote in message ...
"John R Weiss" wrote in message
news:7Hzfc.44106$xn4.148857@attbi_s51...

snip
I've talked
with several "oil kings" in the past, and they all told me the diesels
much
preferred diesel fuel over JP because of its lubricity and energy content.
The
big turbines didn't much care.

The high compression ratios for diesel piston engines cause detonation using
wide cut jet fuel.

Multi-fuel diesel engines can be built and frequently are for the
military vehicles such as tanks. It involves specialy adjustable
injection systems and other provisions to do with lubriticity.
Running on Jet fuel or Gaoline is not problem in the short term for
such engines.

A critical factor for the diesel engine is the "cetane number" and it
is important to have a high centane number. A high cetane number
means that the fuel will ignite easily but burn slowly.

One problem that the German Fischer Tropsh snthetic fuel plants had in
WW2 was that the fuel had far to high a cetane number and burned a
little to slowly. This lowered efficiency and increased exhaust
temperature althout it had to be used frequently. The solution was to
blend the fuel with the low cetane output of the Bergius Hydrogenation
plants.

At one point prior to WW2 kerosene powered spark ignition were quite
popular and they still have their proponents.

Gas turbines are ofcourse indifferent to both centane number and
octane rating and even viscosity and are uneffected in life or
efficiency (whuch reduce in multifuel diesels)

At the moment there are attempts to develop 'photo detonation'
internal combustion engines that do not rely on deflageration
combustion (ie combustion along a flame front rather than by infra red
light) and thus will be indifferent to octane ratings.