The oxidation of a diesel fuel at 1–10 atm: Experimental study in a JSR and detailed chemical kinetic modeling

Abstract

A good knowledge of the kinetics of the fuel combustion under high pressure is necessary for predicting the performances of modern diesel and HCCI engines and pollutants emissions.The kinetics of oxidation of a synthetic diesel fuel was studied in a jet-stirred reactor (JSR) at pressures extending from 1 to 10 atm, in the temperature range 800–1400 K, and for equivalence ratios in the range 0.5–2.0. The concentration profiles of molecular species, reactants, stable intermediates, and products, were measured by sonic probe sampling followed by on-line GC-MS-FID analyses, and off-line GC-TCD-FID and GC-MS analyses. The experiments were modeled using a detailed kinetic reaction mechanism consisting of 2755 reversible reactions and 377 species. The chemical surrogate model-fuel used consisted of a mixture of n-hexadecane (36.1% by weight, 23.5% vol.), n-propylcyclohexane (23.1% w, 26.9% vol.), n-propylbenzene (18.7% w, 22.9% vol.), iso-octane (14.7% w, 19% vol.), and 1-methylnaphthalene (7.4% w, 7.7% vol.). The proposed kinetic reaction mechanism used in the modeling yielded a good representation of the kinetics of oxidation of a synthetic diesel fuel under JSR conditions. Reaction path analyses were used to delineate the most important reaction paths during the oxidation of the fuel.