The aeronautics industry is paying attention to breakthrough powertrains as technical solutions to meet the objectives set by the Advisor Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe (ACARE) to reduce drastically CO2 and NOx emissions, as well as noise emitted from air transport sector in 2020. One of the considered technical solutions consists in using highly supercharged Diesel Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs), eventually embedded in an hybrid powertrain, to be applied both for light aircrafts (helicopters, general and business aviation aircrafts, drones) or for auxiliaries power units (APU) in airliners.

The optimization of these complex technologies, from the point of view of performance, consumption, pollutant emissions and noise, both in stabilized and transient conditions, is a common interest between the automotive and aeronautical domains. In this very constrained context, it is essential to understand and control the impact of the physicochemical properties of fuels on the operation of the internal combustion engine. This is even more important when jet engines are concerned, which properties differ considerably from those of conventional gas oil, covering ranges of products with very variable properties. More generally, the control of the combustion of alternative hydrocarbons is also crucial for the evaluation of alternative fuels in both the automobile and aeronautics.