Passenger aircraft fuel

[BertiWooster]

Almost on every occasion when a plane is in trouble and manages to make it to the runway - it is the resultant fire from the fuel that causes loss of life .

I seem to recall that efforts were being made to try and solve this problem - was it abandoned ?

[rov1200]

Do you remember after the Concorde crash they installed Kevlar into the fuel tanks.

If the human body is ill-designed to withstand fire, it has even less chance where bullets, knives, and bombs are involved. But revolutionary materials that act like a protective outer skin can turn a fatal gunshot into little more than a bruise.

Five times stronger than steel (by weight) and much lighter, the composite Kevlar has revolutionized body protection. It consists of fibers made from long molecular chains of a polymer (plastic material) called polyparaphenylene terephthalamide. Woven tightly together, the fibers effectively knit into a tough protective grid than can withstand knife blows and cuts and some types of gunfire. Effectively, the grid of fibers absorbs and dissipates the energy of a knife blow or bullet before it can damage the body beneath it. Kevlar is also chemical and flame resistant. All this makes it the material of choice in flak jackets, bulletproof vests, anti-mine boots, and chainsaw-protective clothing. An even tougher material called Spectra Fiber is made from a polyethylene composite, in which the fibers are woven at right angles to one another in a flexible resin and coated with a laminate film. This material is ten times stronger than steel, yet extremely light, and provides better protection than woven composites such as Kevlar against automatic weapons

[paddiez]

Tried new fuels and fuel additives,test crashed a 707 with tanks full of the the test fuel. Sadly, experiment failed and 125 crash test dummies expired..Up to now,nothing meaningfull has been developed.

[kempie]

I recall the 707 test crash by NASA in 1984 to test whether a fuel additive called Anti-Misting Kerosene (AMK) would suppress fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNIG1gbky1I

Unfortunately one of the large "wing cutters" placed on the tarmac to slice open the fuel tanks in order to ensure a fire actually sliced through an engine instead causing a more destructive fire than was anticipated for the test.