Book Description

"An understanding of the fundamental combustion properties of alternative fuels is essential for their adoption as replacements for non-renewable sources. In the aviation industry, a promising candidate is hydrotreated renewable jet fuel (HRJF). HRJF can be synthesized in a sustainable and economically viable manner from long chain fatty-acid methyl esters found in jatropha and camelina seed, and the laboratory-scale characterization of the combustion properties of HRJF is an active area of research. Such research is motivated, in part, by the chemical complexity of biojet fuels which are composed of hundreds of hydrocarbon species, similar to conventional aviation grade fuels. The laminar flame speed has been identified as an important combustion parameter for many combustion applications, and is especially relevant to the aviation community. The laminar flame speed is also an important parameter in the validation of chemical kinetic mechanisms, as it is representative of the chemical reactivity of the fuel. In this study, laminar, atmospheric pressure, premixed stagnation flames were used to determine the laminar flame speed of HRJF blended in varying ratios with Jet A-1 aviation fuel, requiring a combination of experimental and numerical methods. Jet A-1 was also studied to allow for comparative benchmarking of the biojet blends. Experiments were carried out in a jet-wall stagnation flame geometry at a pre-heated temperature of 400 K. Centerline velocity profiles were obtained using particle image velocimetry, from which the strained reference flame speeds were determined. Simulations of each experiment were carried out using the CHEMKIN-PRO software package together with a detailed chemical kinetic mechanism, with the specification of necessary boundary conditions taken entirely from experimental measurements. A direct comparison method was used to infer the true laminar flame speed from the experimental and numerical strained reference flame speeds. In order to model the chemical kinetics of Jet A-1 and the biojet blends, it was necessary to identify a surrogate blend that emulates the reactivity of the biojet fuels, while consisting of a much smaller number of pure compounds. Published data shows significant discrepancies for many jet fuel surrogate components, motivating their inclusion in this study. Thus, laminar flame speeds were also obtained for three candidate jet fuel surrogate components: n-decane, methylcyclohexane and toluene, which are representative of the alkane, cycloalkane and aromatic components of conventional aviation fuel, respectively. Results for the pure surrogate components were used to generate a suitable surrogate blend for the biojet blends. The results form this work resolve conflicting laminar flame speed data for the surrogate components, which is essential for the further development of chemical kinetic mechanisms and contributes to the surrogate modelling of jet fuel combustion. The laminar flame speeds of the biojet blends are compared to the Jet A-1 benchmark over a wide range of equivalence ratios. The biojet blends are found to behave similarly to Jet A-1 for low to moderate levels of blending, but show a marked disagreement otherwise." --