Multi-component gaseous alternative model for predicting typical liquid hydrocarbons combustion characteristics

Abstract

Currently, in order to predict more accurately the fire or explosion accident consequence of liquid hydrocarbons, detailed reaction kinetic models are being developed, however it’s incredible for designing full kinetic model one-by-one for the whole compounds. Based on the previous conclusions that the macroscopic combustion characteristics of liquid hydrocarbons depend on their pyrolysis intermediates, in this work, ‘alternative’ idea is taken into consideration that alternative model can accurately predict the combustion consequence of typical liquid hydrocarbons, such as n-heptane (nC7H16), n-octane (nC8H18) and n-decane (nC10H22). Then a multi-component gaseous alternative prediction model is designed for simulating high-temperature combustion characteristics of liquid hydrocarbons. The results show that: (1) Multi-component gaseous alternative model is proven to predict the combustion parameters of liquid hydrocarbons, and the optimal alternative groups are picked out by using a new comprehensive bias expression; (2) Multi-component gaseous alternative model may be built by combining primary pyrolysis intermediates with heat contribution to ignition of each alternative component; (3) the C1-C3 gaseous hydrocarbons should be considered as the core components to build multi-component alternative prediction model of liquid hydrocarbons; (4) the ignition delay time predicted by alternative model can keep almost constant above a certain initial temperature, regardless of any combination of alternative components.