Counterflow Configuration Research Articles

Numerical study on spark ignition of laminar lean premixed methane-air flames in counterflow configuration

ABSTRACT In the present work, the ignition of lean laminar premixed methane-air flames in a counterflow configuration is investigated using detailed numerical simulations. The dependence of the minimum energy necessary for a successful ignition on various parameters (spark geometry, spark duration, mixture composition, flow strain rates) is studied. A one-dimensional numerical calculation is performed using detailed chemical kinetics for the methane-air combustion system. Depending on various parameters, the system can be either successfully ignited (stable flame as stationary solution) or quenched (quenched flame as stationary solution). Furthermore, different detailed chemical mechanisms have been tested. A sensitivity analysis with respect to the Arrhenius parameters shows the key elementary reactions in the prediction of the minimal energy necessary for a successful ignition, which provides important information in the development of detailed chemical mechanisms.

Experimental Study on the Influence of Gas-Solid Heat Transfer in a Mesoscale Counterflow Combustor

ABSTRACT Combustion at small scales is inhibited by the large amount of external surface area leading to excessive heat losses and extinguishment. This limitation is diminished by transferring heat from the products to the reactants through solid surfaces leading to the development of heat recirculating reactors. A promising design is the counterflow configuration in which reactants in one channel are preheated by energy transferred through the wall from the products in the adjacent channel. In the lean equivalence ratio limit of the reactor, this arrangement encourages the stabilization of the flame. In the high equivalence ratio limit, the enhanced heat transfer may encourage blow-off. Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between heat transfer and the operating range of the reactor. In this paper, the importance of the channel surface area-to-volume ratio is investigated analytically and experimentally in a mesoscale combustor. Reactors with different channel shapes were fabricated via additive manufacturing and studied. The change in heat transfer area affected the stable operating range, maximum temperature, and location of flame stabilization. The emission measurements showed low CO and NOx emissions. For all reactors, the stable range was limited by flashback when the burning rate exceeded the flow velocity and by blow-off when the burning rate was insufficient. This work quantifies the importance of heat transfer surface area to the operation of the counterflow reactor and guides the optimization of reactor design.

Construction of a skeletal multi-component diesel surrogate model by integrating chemical lumping and genetic algorithm

Towards high-fidelity combustion chemistry modeling of real diesel fuel, this study aims to construct a skeletal multi-component kinetic model with higher accuracy and heavy hydrocarbons (n-hexadecane, iso-cetane, n-octadecane, α-methylnaphthalene, decalin), which is feasible for engine computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications. The developed skeletal model with 220 species and 1109 reactions is composed of lumped fuel-specific sub-mechanisms and a skeletal C0–C3 core mechanism derived from the well-validated detailed NUIGMech 1.1 mechanism. Chemical lumping integrated with skeletal reduction methods and reaction pathway analysis is used to develop compact fuel-molecule sub-models. Ignition delay and species concentration are then taken as targets simultaneously to optimize the original model automatically using genetic algorithm (GA) within given parameter ranges. Eventually, the optimized kinetic model is validated against various experimental results of pure components, their mixtures and real diesel fuels, including ignition delay times in both shock tubes and rapid compression machines, species concentration profiles in jet-stirred reactors, and laminar flame speeds in the counterflow configurations as well as actual engine data. In addition, it should be noted that due to the absence of test data on pure n-octadecane, the sub-model of n-octadecane is not directly validated in this work, but compared with measurements of real diesel. Overall, the simulation results are in good agreement with experiments under a wide range of engine-like conditions, suggesting that the present skeletal multi-component mechanism can be applied to mimic autoignition and oxidation of actual diesel. As such, this will provide a more accurate and robust combustion model for the development and optimization of advanced engines with high efficiency and ultra-low emissions.

Damage Modeling of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Accounting for Redox Effects

This work applies a multiscale mechanistic damage model developed for brittle ceramics and implemented in commercial finite element (FE) packages via user subroutines to study progressive damage in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) subjected to thermomechanical loading under normal operating and shutdown conditions including redox effects. The damage model captures the micromechanics of stiffness reduction due to material porosity change and microcracking and integrates the as-obtained stiffness reduction law into a continuum damage mechanics (CDM) formulation for the evolution of microcracks up to fracture. The volumetric “swelling” that occurs during redox is treated in constitutive modeling similarly to thermal expansion, but swelling strains are irreversible. This damage model was first validated through predictions of strength and stress-strain response for the SOFC electrode materials. Next, it has been applied to predict the potential for degradation in a generic planar SOFC stack with large active area cells. Multicell stack models were simulated in both co-flow and counter-flow configurations. In addition, a constant temperature redox cycle was also simulated to capture overall cell electrode damage due to volumetric swelling of the nickel (Ni)-based anode in the anode-supported cells.

Noninvasive Measurement of Conductivity Distribution in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells (PEFCs)

Water management in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells (PEFCs) is a crucial topic. Indeed, a homogeneous distribution of the water in the membrane plane is important as it dictates its conductivity. Furthermore, local dry outs or flooding event can damage the cell. Existing measurement methods that are able to provide spatially resolved information on the current density, conductivity or water content distribution are usually invasive and therefore difficult to use in actual applications. A new method, based on the learnings of the development of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) for PEFCs [Schuller and Eller 2020 ECS Trans. 98 3], is used to determine 1D humidity profiles between the gas inlet and outlet in a 6-cell commercial stack. Local AC current injections and voltage measurements are performed using electrodes positioned all around the fuel cell. Each measurement characterizes a defined area of the membrane as the current crosses it very locally. In a first step, the method is calibrated using nitrogen flow at different well-defined humidity levels. Using the calibration data the local boundary voltages can be converted into local humidity conditions when the stack is operated. In Figure 1a the reconstructed conductivity distributions of the stack being operated at four different current densities with inlet relative humidity (RH) of 60 % at the anode and 30 % at the cathode in counter flow configuration is shown. The y-axis represents the relative membrane conductivity value where 1 corresponds to the reference measurement with the highest inlet RH (90%). The conductivity increases with increasing current densities and there tends to be a higher conductivity towards the cathode outlet due to water drag through the membrane. Thanks to the fast multi-channel data acquisition setup, the method can be also used to study the dynamic behavior of a cell. Figure 1b shows the time resolved reconstruction of the conductivity distribution when flushing the cell with nitrogen (anode and cathode at 40% RH) after the stack is operated at 0.8 A/cm2. The method is capable to resolve the quick decrease in membrane conductivity at both inlets and to follow the much slower drying process of the membrane in the center of the cell. Figure 1

Energy, Exergy, Economic, Environmental (4Es) comparative performance evaluation of dewpoint evaporative cooler configurations

The performance of different configurations of Maisotsenko (M-cycle) based dew point evaporative cooler is significantly effected by operating range in a certain climate. Moreover, the system's economic and environmental aspects are equally important for its viability. In the current study, experimentation is conducted to explore the impact of the wide range of operating parameters on performance. The experimental results are further utilized for 4E (energy, exergy, economic and environmental) analysis of counter and cross flow configurations analysis along with resource consumption. Results show that supply temperature increases around 70% and 78%, cooling capacity increase about 87% and 60%, and energy efficiency ratio decreased 13.7% and 25.5% at low to high operating range. The maximum and minimum exergy efficiency of counter and cross flow are 46%, 18.23%, and 52%, 21.58%, respectively. Furthermore, counter flow configuration consumes 39% and 2.7%, 24.65% and 35%, 21.4%, and 38% more water and electricity consumption at low, medium, and high operating conditions. The decrease in present worth cost at low to high-interest rates is around 31.8% for counter flow and 29.6% for cross flow at a high range of operating parameters. The counter flow system at 13% interest rate has 48%, 34.6%, and 28% more life cycle cost than cross flow. Around 59%–34% more net present value with 1.3 years and 1.96 years of payback period at the high range of operating parameters. Moreover, the counter and cross flow configurations produce 158 to 342.57 kgCO2/month and 153 to 329 kgCO2/month, respectively when operated at low to high operating parameters range.

Hydrogen effect on flame extinction of hydrogen-enriched methane/air premixed flames: An assessment from the combustion safety point of view

Hydrogen-enriched natural gas is a promising low-carbon fuel in combustion devices. To better assess its feasibility from the extinction prevention point of view, the extinction of near-limit premixed hydrogen-methane/air flames over a wide range of equivalence ratios was measured using the single-flame counterflow configuration. Results showed that the hydrogen addition resulted in a greater extinction stretch rate. Further analysis demonstrated that the extinction stretch rate of premixed hydrogen-methane/air flames linearly correlated with the corresponding reference flame speed. Thereby a combustion regime map diagram, separating the burning and extinction, was sketched. In addition, critical extinction Damkӧhlor number of premixed hydrogen-methane/air flames was investigated and it was found to be insensitive to the hydrogen addition and equivalence ratio. Finally, the hydrogen addition effect and the corresponding extinction response were assessed for two scenarios, 1) constant thermal load (gas turbine, gas-fired boilers, etc.), and 2) constant fuel injection pressure (gas stove, oven, etc.). The results indicated that H2 addition promoted the combustion safety by increasing the extinction stretch rates, but an allowable H2 variation window existed when considering the unexpected high-temperature damage of the burners. The allowable H2 variation window of Scenario 1 was found much broader than that of Scenario 2.

Direct numerical simulation of compressible turbulence in a counter-flow channel configuration

We introduce a counter-flow turbulent channel configuration, amenable to simulation and modeling. It has periodic streamwise and spanwise boundaries and isothermal no-slip walls. A tangent hyperbolic forcing function drives the flow in opposite directions on the upper and lower halves of the channel, forming an antisymmetric mean shear velocity profile. Compared to conventional channel flows, the mean flow is inflectional and the maximum turbulence intensity relative to the maximum mean velocity is nearly an order of magnitude higher. The counter-flow channel can sustain high turbulent Mach numbers which is useful for studying high Reynolds and Mach number turbulent flows.

2-D + 1-D PEM fuel cell model for fuel cell system simulations

The water management is critical for the operation of PEM fuel cells and has a strong impact on its performance and durability. The aim of this work is the simulation-based investigation of the operation of a PEM fuel cell system with the special focus on its water management.In order to analyze these dependencies correctly, a 2-D + 1-D PEM fuel cell stack model has been developed, which on the one hand has a high level of modelling details and on the other hand meets high requirements concerning its runtime, to enable acceptable simulation times for fuel cell system simulations. The fuel cell model is integrated into an AVL Cruise-M fuel cell system simulation.An analysis is presented comparing a system operation with a fuel cell in co- and counter-flow configuration with a special focus on the local and overall water management.

Large eddy simulation of premixed turbulent combustion using a non-adiabatic, strain-sensitive flamelet approach

In this study, a novel strained, non-adiabatic flamelet generated manifold (FGM) model is developed based on a counterflow premixed flame. The different levels of strain and heat loss are introduced into the flamelets by varying the stagnation point strain rate and burnt temperature of the counterflow configuration. The strain rate response of these flamelets is found to exhibit different extinction patterns for different ranges of burnt temperature. A priori studies are performed to compare the phase-space flame structures of the strained and unstrained flamelets. It is found that the strained flamelet degenerates towards the unstrained flamelet with burnt temperature decreasing. A bifurcation burnt temperature is further defined that separates the two types of flamelet quenching that are driven by strain and heat loss. An appropriate set of tabulation parameters is chosen that preserves the uniqueness of mapping between the manifold and the populated flamelets. The external boundaries of the tabulations are defined, where the proposed model degenerates into the conventional unstrained/non-adiabatic FGM manifold. Internal tabulation boundaries are defined to distinguish different combustion modes among stable combustion, strain-induced quenching, and heat-loss-induced quenching. The model is validated using large eddy simulation (LES) of a confined turbulent premixed jet flame. The proposed FGM model vastly increases accuracy of predictions when both strain and heat loss effects are included. Without accounting for these effects, there are discrepancies in the prediction of flame height and temperature as compared with experimental data. An analysis of the dominant physical process (strain, heat loss) that contributes to the evolution of the turbulent flame is performed.

Enhancement of lithium-ion battery thermal management with the divergent-shaped channel cold plate

Effective thermal management is critical to the performance and durability of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. As an alternative to conventional cold plates with straight channels, a new cold plate with divergent-shaped channels has been proposed to minimize the maximum temperature and pressure drop. Compared with conventional straight-shaped channels, the divergent-shaped channels exhibit enhanced performance with a higher heat dissipation capacity and lower frictional resistance. To further reduce the local flow resistance, divergent-shaped channels with two inlets and one outlet have been evaluated. This new design can successfully decrease the pressure drop by 7.2% and decrease the maximum temperature difference from 3.99 to 3.19 K. Finally, battery cooling modules with a counter-flow configuration have been constructed, which achieve a smaller maximum temperature difference. This work contributes to the development of effective and efficient battery cooling systems for electric vehicles.

Reassessing the 2-D velocity boundary effect on the determination of extinction stretch rate and laminar flame speed using the counterflow flame configuration

This study delivered a reassessment of the two-dimensional (2-D) velocity boundary effect on the determination of the extinction stretch rate and the laminar flame speed using the counterflow flame configuration. Experimental and numerical results showed that the extinction stretch rate was sensitive to the burner exit stretch rate, the burner separation distance, and the impinged flow temperature, but the reference flame speed is insensitive to these boundary conditions. A semi-quantitative analysis demonstrated that the boundary condition affected the computed function of the reference flame speed with respect to the stretch rate and thereby influence the extrapolated laminar flame speed using the computationally assisted nonlinear extrapolation. The experimental results over a broad range of equivalence ratios confirmed that the non-uniform velocity boundary would result in a considerable error in the determination of the laminar flame speed for the mixture with the non-unity Lewis number. This problem can be solved by applying the true measured velocity boundary in the extrapolation curve computation. The present study suggested the consideration of the 2-D velocity boundary condition effect in the determination of the laminar flame speed and the extinction stretch rate using the counterflow configuration.

Effects of flow pattern and hydrogen recirculation on consistency of current density distribution in a self-humidified polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell analyzed by a segmented model

Distributions of water and oxygen concentration are the two main factors that influence the consistency of current density in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell. While the former type is relevant to the ohmic loss, the latter one associated with the mass transfer loss. In a self-humidified condition, higher demand for water management is requested as membrane drying often appears. To investigate the effects of flow pattern and hydrogen recirculation on the consistency of current density, the cell is tested under five different conditions, and a quasi-three-dimensional transient non-isothermal model is developed to explain different experimental phenomena in this study. Differences of distributions of current density, resistance and reaction gases are examined by comparing co-flow with counter-flow conditions, humidified with self-humidified conditions and dead-ended anode with hydrogen recirculation conditions. The results show that consistency reduces with the cell current density increasing, and gas humification is significantly beneficial. In co-flow configurations, the standard deviation of local current density increases from 0.02 at 0.2 A cm−2 to 0.14 at 1.2 A cm−2 under the humidified condition, increasing from 0.38 at 0.2 A cm−2 to 0.26 at 1.2 A cm−2 under the self-humidified condition. The water distribution of the cell in counter-flow configuration is more uniform than that in the co-flow configuration under the whole current density conditions. Hydrogen recirculation can improve the water content of segments near the inlet gas channel in the anode, and the consistency is the best when the current density is larger than 0.4 A cm−2.

Experimental investigation of thermal-hydraulic characteristics of finned oval tube bundles in cross-flow arrangements

Enhancement of heat transfer using finned circular tubes arranged in counter-flow configurations are accompanied by high pressure losses. To obviate these problems, finned oval tubes are introduced which can enhance heat transfer while keeping pressure losses minimum. In this paper, different configurations of finned oval tubes which are called tube bundles are experimentally investigated using a thermal camera and a smoke wind tunnel (1800 <Re∞<8200). Given that thermal performance and hydraulic behavior of the tube bundles have reciprocal effects on each other, flow patterns, shedding behavior, and temperature distribution on the finned oval tubes in presence of a heat flux are visualized experimentally for the first time in order to monitor wake zones and their corresponding sizes and impacts on the heat transfer performance of finned oval tube bundles. Effects of diagonal tube pitch and angle of tubes arranged in the staggered configurations on the flow regime, heat transfer rate and pressure loss are studied and the Chilton–Colburn J-factor and friction coefficient f are investigated. Following these investigations, three distinct flow patterns are identified. Based on the results, recirculation regions formed behind the central tube and the dead zone between upper tubes imposes negative effects on the flow behavior leading to a bad thermal performance. Based on the results, for the studied Reynolds numbers and arrangements, smaller tube diagonal pitches are the most desirable in staggered configurations of finned oval tubes. Nusselt number is almost 25% higher for smaller tube pitches in relation to the larger one. Bundles with smaller tube pitches have also higher efficiency indices. Accordingly, at all configurations, finned oval tube bundles perform better at low and high Reynolds numbers from the efficiency index point of view. Therefore, it is better to use these kinds of tubes at low Reynolds numbers in the industry.

Experimental investigation of heat transfer enhancement in a double pipe heat exchanger with a twisted inner pipe

AbstractIn the present work, an experimental investigation is conducted to address the influence of inner pipe twisting on the overall performance of a double pipe heat exchanger. With the fluid to fluid heat exchange, both parallel and counter flow directions are examined as well. In addition to the original elliptical pipe, three pipes with different numbers of twisting (3, 5, and 7 twists per unit length) constructed from the elliptical pipe are considered where the heat transfer rate and pressure drop are addressed. All tests are carried out in the turbulent flow regime where the Reynolds number (Re) ranging from 5000 to 26,000 and water is used as the working medium. The obtained outcomes show that for both flow directions, there is an enhancement in the heat exchanger overall performance with all considered twisting pipes. The maximum enhancement in the Nusselt number is found to be 1.8 for the parallel flow and around 2.2 for the counter flow compared with the original pipe. The inner pipe with 7 twists, however, improves the overall performance the most, where a maximum performance enhancement factor of 1.63 and 1.9 are observed at Reynolds number of 26,000 in the parallel and counter flow configurations, respectively.

The combined effects of chemical reaction order and stoichiometry on nonpremixed edge flames

We examined in this work the combined effects of chemical reaction order n and the stoichiometric mixture fraction on the propagation of nonpremixed edge flames in a counterflow configuration. We began by formulating the problem mathematically using the constant density thermo-diffusive model. The problem was then solved numerically using the finite element method. It has been shown that the reaction order and stoichiometry have an interchangeable role in modifying flame propagation. The study has shown that triple flames exist only for a limited range of values of both the chemical reaction order n and the stoichiometric mixture fraction . Over such values, modifying n and were found to have a great impact on many characteristics related to the flame structure, such as the flame location, the extent of both the premixed flame wings and the trilling diffusion flame, and the flame curvature. In addition, the flame location was found to vary subjected to the value of the reaction order in a manner similar to that observed by varying the mixture fraction. The study also identified the influence of the fuel Lewis number on the flame propagation and was found that the effect of is more pronounced when the reaction order differs from unity. Finally, the study has examined the role of the strain rate on the flame propagation and concluded that the effect of the chemical order n is negligible for stoichiometric mixtures but tends to be significant for off-stoichiometric mixtures.

Damage Modeling of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Accounting for Redox Effects

This paper applies a multiscale mechanistic damage model developed for porous brittle ceramics and implemented in finite element analysis (FEA) packages [1] to study progressive damage in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) subjected to thermomechanical loading under operating and shutdown states. The damage model captures the micromechanics of stiffness reduction due to material porosity change and microcracking and integrates the as-obtained stiffness reduction law into a continuum damage mechanics (CDM) formulation for the evolution of microcracks up to fracture. An Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka approach (EMTA) [2-3] is first used to model the ceramic containing pores and aligned microcracks regarded as inclusions with negligible stiffness. The stiffness of the actual porous ceramic is obtained from the EMTA solution averaged over all possible microcrack orientations using an orientation averaging method. The evolution of microcracking damage is described by a CDM formulation derived from our previous model [4]. Apart from the operating and shutdown states, additional damage that may occur due to reduction and re-oxidation (redox cycling) of Ni/YSZ anodes is also studied. The reduction of NiO into Ni leads to changes in volume and porosity of the anode layer that consequently change its physical and thermomechanical properties. The volume change or volumetric “swelling” during redox cycling may affect the structural integrity of the anode and may cause fracture of the electrolyte under high tensile stresses leading to operational failure for SOFCs. In the constitutive relations, volumetric swelling is treated in a similar way to thermal expansion using the models developed in Refs [5-6] for fusion energy ceramic materials. However, while thermal expansion vanishes if temperature change tends to zero, swelling is irreversible and significantly contributes to degrade SOFC stacks during redox cycling.This damage model was implemented in the commercial FEA software ABAQUS© and ANSYS© via user subroutines. First, it has been validated through predictions of strength and stress-strain response for the typical SOFC ceramic materials. Figs 1(a) and 1(b) show the predicted stress-strain responses as a function of temperature for dense NiO/YSZ and Ni/YSZ, respectively. These figures also illustrate the predicted responses at 750°C with prescribed initial values of porosity. The damage model predicts significant reductions in strength and elastic modulus with higher initial porosity and higher temperatures, and the predicted trends are in good agreement with the experimental findings [7-8].Next, the damage model was applied to predict the potential for degradation in a generic planar SOFC stack with large active area cells modeled in ANSYS. Stack models with single and multi-cells were simulated in both co-flow and counter-flow configurations. The thermomechanical loads representing the operating and shutdown conditions were simulated. The realistic thermal gradients that occur in an operating stack were imposed in the models by solving the electrochemistry under various operating conditions using the in-house SOFC multiphysics code (SOFC MP-3D) [9-10]. In addition to the operating and shutdown conditions, a constant temperature redox cycle was also simulated to capture overall cell electrode damage due to volumetric swelling of the Ni/YSZ anode in the anode supported cells. The results from single cell stack models showed little damage at operating and shutdown conditions which could be attributed to enough out-of-plane support for the PEN assembly. The results from the multicell stacks (Fig. 2) showed higher damage in counter-flow configuration. Within the stack, the top cells experienced the highest damage and the middle cells experienced the lowest. Overall, no significant damage that may lead to total failure of the cells was observed in the multicell stack models with the operating conditions considered in this study.

Multiscale modeling of degradation of full solid oxide fuel cell stacks

Limiting the degradation of solid oxide fuel cells is an important challenge for their widespread use and commercialization. The computational expense of long-term simulation of a full stack with conventional models is immense. In this study, we present a multiscale three-dimensional model of a degrading full stack of solid oxide cells, where we integrate degradation phenomena of nickel particle coarsening in the anode electrode, chromium poisoning of the cathode electrode, and oxidation of the interconnect into a multiscale model of the stack. This approach makes this type of simulation computationally feasible, and 38 thousand hours of the stack operation can be simulated in 1 h and 15 min on a high-end workstation. Hereby one can start to explore the optimum operating conditions for a range of parameters. The model is validated with experimental data from an 18-cell Jülich Mark-F stack experiment and predicts common trends reported in the literature for evolutions of the stack performance, degradation phenomena, and the related model variables. Moreover, it captures how different regimes in the full stack degrades at different rates and how the various degradation phenomena interact over time. The model is used to investigate the effects of galvanostatic and potentiostatic operation modes, operating conditions, and flow configurations on the long-term performance of the stack. Results demonstrate, as expected, that potentiostatic operation mode, moderate temperature, lower load current, and counter-flow configuration improve the long-term performance of the stack.

Comparative Numerical Study of Co- and Counter-Flow Configurations of an All-Porous Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

The All-Porous Solid Oxide Fuel Cell is a concept in which the electrolyte layer, similar to the other two layers, is porous. Thus, firm sealing between cell layers is not a concern, and fuel and oxidant are free to intermix through the porous electrolyte. Furthermore, The All-Porous Solid Oxide Fuel Cell does not need any sealant, and crack generation in its electrolyte component does not terminate cell operation. Cell performance enhancement, based on the flow geometry, is the main target of this study. To achieve this goal, two flow configurations, co-flow and counter-flow, are considered and compared for a hydrogen-fuelled planar All-Porous Solid Oxide Fuel Cell. A finite element method-based commercial software is utilized to solve the nonlinear governing equations of mass, momentum, energy, charge balance, and gas-phase species coupled with kinetics equations. The results include velocity field distribution, species mole fraction in different layers, and temperature contours within the cell. Results show that the counter flow configuration concept reveals better cell performance.

Development of a multi-component surrogate fuel model of marine diesel engine

A fuel combustion mechanism was developed based on a multi-component surrogate fuel composed of n-tetradecane, toluene, methylcyclohexane (MCH), and ethanol, the four most common components of real diesel fuel. A decoupling methodology was used to develop the new surrogate fuel mechanism. The developed surrogate fuel model includes 97 species and 386 reactions. The accuracy of new mechanism was obtained by comparing with experiment data in shock tube, counterflow configuration and marine engine. The comparison results of the simulations and experiment were shown in this paper for ignition delay times (IDT). The deviations of calculations were within accepting error for n-tetradecane, toluene, methylcyclohexane, and ethanol respectively. The laminar flame speed was an important parameter to validate the accuracy of the mechanism. The variation trends were the same as the experimental results. The revised mechanism was coupled with computational fluid dynamic (CFD) to simulate the combustion of a marine engine. The influence of surrogate fuel components ratios were investigated based on the CFD model. The prediction results well coincided with the experimental results of in-cylinder pressure of the marine engine. However, the ratios of components in the surrogate fuel have large effect on the formation of NOx emissions, especially the content of n-tetradecane. The results suggest that the multi-component surrogate fuel mechanism is suitable for simulating the diesel combustion.