Significant progress towards development and validation of a detailed chemical kinetic mechanism for the US Air Force JP-8 fuel is presented in this article. Three detailed chemical kinetic mechanisms for three JP-8 surrogate fuels, as given in Table I, were developed and reported in this study. The main objective is to investigate the performance of the developed three mechanisms for three different surrogate fuel blends and determine the suitability of each mechanism to chemically model the US Air Force petroleum-derived JP-fuel. The detailed JP-8 chemical kinetic reaction mechanism, we have been developing [1–3] for a 12-component surrogate fuel blend, has been used as a basis for the development of two additional detailed reaction mechanisms for the other two surrogate fuel mixtures. Submechanisms for the monosubstituted aromatics such as toluene, m-xylene, butylbenzene, and for the bicyclic aromatics such as 1-methylnaphthalene were all assembled and integrated with the detailed JP-8 reaction mechanism [1–3]. Pressure-dependent rate parameters up to 10 atmospheres for 41 reactions were also included. The three mechanisms were evaluated by predicting the ignition and combustion characteristics of a JP-8 fuel-air mixture in Plug Flow Reactor (PFR) and a Perfectly-Stirred Reactor (PSR) over a temperature range of 933–1020 K and pressure of 1 atm. The results indicated that overall the mechanism for the 6-component JP-8 surrogate 3 (Table I) can predict similar ignition-delay periods as those predicted by the 12-component JP-8 surrogate fuel 1 for atmospheric pressure condition. However, the PSR calculations pointed out to the existence of differences in lighter hydrocarbon species concentration profiles such as CH4, C2H4, C3H6, and C4H8 and important emission species such as CO and CO2 as predicted by the mechanisms that exhibited comparable ignition delay times. The study suggests that, for the conditions considered here, that the developed mechanisms still require further evaluation under various combustion environments, including transport phenomena, to determine the suitability of the chemical kinetic mechanism for either surrogate fuel 1 or 3 to chemically simulate the actual US Air Force JP-8 fuel.
A detailed chemical kinetic reaction mechanism for oxidation of four small alkyl esters in laminar premixed flames
