Analysis of detailed kinetic schemes for combustion processes: Application to a methane-ethane mixture

Abstract

The combustion kinetics of equimolar ethane-methane mixtures have been investigated in a perfectly jet stirred reactor in the temperature range 923–1,080 K and for normalized fuel/O 2 stoichiometric ratios of 0.24–1.5. The concentrations of the main molecular species have been measured by probe sampling and GC analysis. The experimental data have been compared with the model predictions of four detailed kinetic mechanisms previously reported in the literature. A simple procedure to extract the most important reactions from a detailed kinetic scheme has also been developed. With this procedure a reduced model has been identified which is able to reproduce the behavior of the original detailed model in the entire range of operating conditions investigated in the experimental part of this work. A good reduction in the number of reactions has been obtained, while the number of involved chemical species has been only slightly reduced.