SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice ARP1533 is a procedure for the analysis and evaluation of the measured composition of the exhaust gas from aircraft engines. Measurements of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, total hydrocarbon, and the oxides of nitrogen are used to deduce emission indices, fuel-air ratio, combustion efficiency, and exhaust gas thermodynamic properties. The emission indices (EI) are the parameters of critical interest to the engine developers and the atmospheric emissions regulatory agencies because they relate engine performance to environmental impact.

While this procedure is intended to guide the analysis and evaluation of the emissions from aircraft gas turbine engines, the methodology may be applied to the analysis of the exhaust products of any hydrocarbon/air combustor. Some successful applications include:

Each application may be characterized by very different measured emissions levels (parts per million versus percent by volume) but this common approach solves the same basic combustion chemical equation.

Major advances are occurring in gas analysis technology, and will continue to occur in the near future. New instruments may be accepted by the regulatory agencies such that it may no longer be appropriate to specify the measurement method for each chemical species.

The matrix method of solving the combustion chemical equation is recommended because of all the potential variations in exhaust gas measurement requirements. Changes in the fuel type, addition of diluents, addition of measured species, and options for wet or dry basis measurements are most easily handled by revising individual matrix row equations. Matrix solution software is widely available on personal computers. However, derivation of the algebraic solution of the chemical equation is retained for traceability to previous versions of this document. This document also contains a section pertaining to data quality checks, measurement uncertainty, and water content calculations.