A comprehensive experimental and modeling study of the ignition delay time characteristics of ternary and quaternary blends of methane, ethane, ethylene, and propane over a wide range of temperature, pressure, equivalence ratio, and dilution

Sergio Martinez,Mohammadreza Baigmohammadi,Vaibhav Patel,Snehasish Panigrahy,Amrit B Sahu,Shashank Nagaraja,Ajoy Ramalingam,Karl Alexander Heufer,Andrzej Pekalski,Henry J Curran

doi:10.1016/j.combustflame.2021.111626

Sergio Martinez, Mohammadreza Baigmohammadi + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2021.111626

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Abstract

The ignition delay time (IDT) characteristics of new ternary and quaternary blended C1 – C3 gaseous hydrocarbons, including methane/ethane/ethylene and methane/ethane/ethylene/propane, are studied over a wide range of mixture composition, temperature (∼800 – 2000 K), pressure (∼1 – 135 bar), equivalence ratio (∼0.5 – 2.0), and dilution (∼75 – 90%) using both experimental data and kinetic modeling tools. In this regard, all of the experimental tests were designed using the Taguchi approach (L9) to fulfill the experimental matrix required to generate a comprehensive set necessary to validate a detailed chemical kinetic model. High- and low-temperature IDTs were recorded using low/high-pressure shock tubes (L/HPST) and rapid compression machines (RCM), respectively. The model predictions using NUIGMech1.2 are evaluated versus all of the newly recorded experimental data. Moreover, the individual effects on IDT predictions of the parameters studied, including mixture composition and pressure, are investigated over the temperature range. The results show that NUIGMech1.2 can reasonably reproduce the experimental IDTs over the wide range of the conditions studied. The constant-volume simulations using the chemical kinetic mechanism reveal the synergistic/antagonistic effect of blending on IDTs over the studied temperature range so that IDTs in certain temperature ranges are very sensitive to even small changes in mixture composition.

Highlights

The combustion of low-carbon fuels (C1 – C3) for energy and power generation is a very promising step towards future low-tozero emission energy production
It reproduces the effects of mixture composition and temperature on ignition delay time (IDT), but it can reliably predict the effects of pressure, equivalence ratio, and the effect of dilution except at very high-pressures (≥ 90 bar) where the model underpredicts the IDTs for the ternary blends of the CH4/C2H4/C2H6 mixtures
A detailed experimental and kinetic modeling study of the IDT characteristics of C1 – C3 novel ternary and quaternary blends of CH4/C2H4/C2H6 and CH4/C2H4/C2H6/C3H8 mixtures was performed over a wide range of experimental conditions, temperature (∼750 – 2000 K), pressure (1 – 135 bar), equivalence ratio (0.5 ≤ φ ≤ 2.0), and dilution (∼75 – 90%). 24 new IDT datasets, including approximately 360 data points were measured, which were not already available in the literature

Summary

Introduction

The combustion of low-carbon fuels (C1 – C3) for energy and power generation is a very promising step towards future low-tozero emission energy production. Developing a comprehensive experimental IDT database that can stochastically and unbiasedly cover a wide range of operating conditions, including pressure, temperature, equivalence ratio, and dilution, is essential in this regard. Such a database can efficiently support the development of high-fidelity chemical kinetics, which can be validated against all available experimental IDT data. Martinez et al [4] extended this work for higher hydrocarbon by investigating the IDTs of binary blends of C2H4/propane (C3H8) and C2H6/C3H8 mixtures in a shock tube (ST) and in a rapid compression machine (RCM) over a wide range of temperature, pressure, equivalence ratio, and dilution conditions

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