An Experimental and Kinetic Modeling Study of N-dodecane Pyrolysis and Oxidation in a Flow Reactor

Published

August 31, 2015

Author(s)

S. Banerjee, Rei Tangko, David Sheen, Hai Wang, Craig T. Bowman

Abstract

N-dodecane (n-C12H26) is a straight chain alkane that forms an important constituent of surrogate blends for common aviation fuels such as JP8 and Jet-A. The current study investigates n-dodecane pyrolysis and oxidation kinetics in the intermediate temperature regime of 1000K - 1300K in the Stanford Variable Pressure Flow Reactor facility. The reactor environment is vitiated and the experiments were conducted at atmospheric pressure. Species time history data were collected for n-dodecane and oxygen, as well as for 12 intermediate product species over a span of 1-40 ms residence times using real time gas chromatography. The experimental data were compared against the predictions of four detailed kinetic mechanisms. The results showed that the fuel oxidation proceeds through an early pyrolytic stage where the fuel breaks down into smaller alkene fragments and a late oxidation stage where the fi nal alkene fragments oxidize to CO through C1- C4 chemistry pathways and the formation of intermediates such as CH2O, C2H2, C2H6 and CH4. The kinetic mechanisms were observed to differ in their predictions from each other and a sensitivity analysis identif ed the cause of the divergences to differences in several of the C1- C3 reaction rate and thermochemistry values adopted in the mechanisms. Finally, the fl ow reactor data were used to validate a reaction scheme optimization process based on solution mapping and a polynomial chaos uncertainty minimization technique. The resultant optimized mechanism predictions were found to be a better fi t for several existing n-dodecane data sets as well as those from the current study.

Citation

Combustion and Flame

Volume

163

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Keywords

n-dodecane, flow reactor, combustion, kinetics

Citation

Banerjee, S. , Tangko, R. , Sheen, D. , Wang, H. and Bowman, C. (2015), An Experimental and Kinetic Modeling Study of N-dodecane Pyrolysis and Oxidation in a Flow Reactor, Combustion and Flame, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2015.08.005 (Accessed December 6, 2024)