Construction of reduced oxidation mechanisms of polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODE1–6) with consistent structure using decoupling methodology and reaction rate rule

Abstract

Due to high oxygen content and lack of CC bond, polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODEn) have become desired fuel additives to simultaneously reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) and soot emissions. However, there is a vacancy of reduced reaction mechanisms to describe the long-chain PODEn (n>3) combustion for engine simulations. This study aims at the construction of reduced mechanisms for the series of PODE1–6 with a consistent structure based on the decoupling methodology and reaction rate rule. First, the reduced mechanisms of PODE1–2 are constructed using the reaction class-based global sensitivity analysis and the decoupling methodology. In the reduced mechanisms of PODE1–2, the skeletal fuel-related sub-mechanism is integrated with a detailed H2/CO/C1 sub-mechanism and a reliable reduced C2–C3 sub-mechanism. Then, due to the similar molecular structure, the skeletal fuel-specific sub-mechanisms of the long-chain PODE3–6 are constructed based on the benchmark fuel of PODE2. The kinetic parameters of the reactions in the skeletal fuel-specific sub-mechanism of PODE3–6 are obtained using the modified linear lumping method and the reaction rate rule assumption. Through the approach proposed in this study, the reduced mechanisms of long-chain PODEn can be effectively constructed based on the chemistry of short-chain PODEn, especially for PODE5–6 with no available detailed mechanisms so far. The final reduced mechanism for the complete series of PODE1–6 only consists of 92 species and 389 reactions. To validate the predictions of the reduced mechanism, extensive comparisons are carried out including ignition delay times in shock tubes, major species concentrations in jet-stirred reactors, and laminar flame speeds and flame species concentrations in premixed laminar flames. Moreover, the measurements of homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines fueled with PODE2–4 and PODE3–6 are used for the validations of in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate, and emissions. The overall performance of the reduced mechanism of PODE1–6 is satisfactory under wide operating conditions. This present approach can also be extended to build compact-size reduced mechanisms for the fuels with similar molecular structures, even though no detailed mechanism is available.