Soot and PAH formation in laminar diffusion flames of RP-3 jet kerosene and its surrogates at preheat temperature

Abstract

For investigating the effects of preheat temperature on the soot/PAH formation of RP-3 kerosene surrogates, planar laser-induced incandescence (PLII), planar laser-induced fluorescence of PAH (PAH-PLIF) and chemical kinetic simulation are conducted in several laminar diffusion flames. The goal is to provide a surrogate that matches well with the soot formation characteristics of RP-3 kerosene and to investigate the mechanism behind the temperature sensitivity of different surrogates. Firstly, surrogate S1 (30.3% n-hexadecane, 39.8% iso-cetane, 29.8% o-xylene, in mole fraction) is formulated to obtain a surrogate with good reproducibility of soot formation characteristics corresponding to the RP-3 jet kerosene. Compared with another reported surrogate S2, S1 presents a higher soot yield due to its higher PAH formation and a stronger soot formation propensity. With elevated preheat temperature, soot yield of all the studied flames gets higher, and the temperature sensitivities for soot formation of S1 and S2 are shown with little difference. By further analyzing the PAH results experimentally and numerically, the temperature sensitivity for soot yield of S2 is more closely related to the temperature sensitivity of PAH precursors, while the subsequent processes after soot inception may be more important to the temperature dependence of S1.