Reduction of detailed kinetic mechanisms for pyrolysis, combustion, and detonation modeling

Abstract

The values of ignition delay predicted for stoichiometric C2H2/O2 and CH4/O2 mixtures by various detailed kinetic mechanisms presented in the literature are compared over the temperature range of 1000 < T <2100 K and the pressure range of 0.02 < P < 1.1 MPa. The number of species in detailed kinetic mechanisms is reduced by a trial-and-error method while keeping the response of ignition delay within a relative error range of 5 = 30%. The automatic computer code developed in this study has made it possible to reduce the number of species by a factor of more than 2 for the C2H2/O2 mixture and a factor of 3 for the CH4/O2 mixture, respectively. A comparison of predictions based on the reduced mechanisms with experimental data presented in the literature shows good agreement.