Ignition delay time measurements for distillate and synthetic jet fuels
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- As alternatives to traditional petroleum-based fuels are increasingly sought after, the National Jet Fuel Combustion Program (NJFCP) was established to streamline the evaluation and certification of these fuels. The current mandate is for the replacements of traditional fuels to be equally safe and to provide better environmental performance [1]. These so-called "drop-in" jet fuels refer to hydrocarbon fuels that deliver identical combustion performance and are produced from non-petroleum sources [2]. Following the mandate delivered by the NJFCP for alternative fuels, this study aims to improve the traditionally phenomenological understanding of combustion performance by making connections between fuel properties and the chemical composition of fuels. The ignition delay time is an important measure of the combustion performance of fuels, as it is an integrated measure of the fuels' physical and chemical properties, such as volatility, diffusivity, and chemical reactivity. Consequently, it is a very useful validation target in chemical kinetic modeling and has implications in practical aviation phenomena such as, among others, lean blowout, cold-start ignition and altitude relight. Shock tubes are well-suited for ignition delay time measurements, as they provide a well-defined time zero and a quasi-constant temperature and pressure test region behind the reflected shocks. All experiments in this thesis were performed on the Stanford Flexible Application Shock Tube (FAST). Reactive gas mixtures were prepared with equivalence ratios of 1 ± 0.05, and mixed in the shock tube driven section to avoid fuel loss attributed to non-idealities in the jet fuel vapor. Changes in the fuel mole fraction during mixing and ignition were monitored using laser absorption diagnosis at 3.39 µm. The ignition delay time is defined in this study by the onset of emission from electronically excited OH radicals at 306 nm. Ignition delay times were measured in the temperature range of 1200-1500 K and at 4 atm pressure for five distillate jet fuels from refineries around the US (termed geographical fuels), and for six synthetic jet fuels with varying cetane numbers ranging from 30-55 (termed CN fuels). The ignition delay times for A1-3 and C1-9 jet fuels were also measured at 1300 K and at 4 atm. The dependence of combustion properties on fuel chemical composition were investigated using the ignition delay times for these fuels. In particular, the key role that the degree of branching in the jet fuel molecular structure plays in the combustion kinetics and performance is discussed.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Cao, Yi |
|---|---|
| Degree committee member | Hanson, Ronald |
| Thesis advisor | Hanson, Ronald |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Yi Cao. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis Engineering Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by Yi Cao
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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