Development of Detailed Chemical Kinetic Mechanisms for Ignition/Oxidation of JP-8/Jet-A/JP-7 Fuels

Progress on development and validation of detailed chemical kinetic mechanisms for the U.S. Air Force JP-8 and JP-7 fuels [1] is reported in this article. Two JP-8 surrogate fuel blends were considered. The first JP-8 surrogate blend contained 12 pure hydrocarbon components, which were 15% n-C10H22, 20% n-C12H26, 15% n-C14H30, 10% n-C16H34, 5% i-C8H18, 5% C7H14, 5% C8H16, 5% C8H10, 5% C10H14, 5% C9H12, 5% C10H12 and 5% C11H10 by weight. The second JP-8 surrogate blend contained 4 components, which were 45% n-C12H26, 20% n-C10H22, 25% C10H14, and 10% C7H14 by weight. A five-component surrogate blend for JP-7 was also considered. The JP-7 surrogate blend components were 30% n-C10H22, 30% n-C12H26, 30% C10H20, 5% i-C8H18, and 5% C7H8 by weight. The current status of the JP-8 and JP-7 mechanisms is that they consist of 221 species and 1483 reactions and 205 species and 1438 reactions respectively. Both JP-8 and JP-7 mechanisms were evaluated using a lean fuel-air mixture, over a temperature range of 900–1050 K and for atmospheric pressure conditions by predicting autoignition delay times and comparing them to the available experimental data for Jet-A fuel. The comparisons demonstrated the ability of the 12-component JP-8 surrogate fuel blend to predict the autoignition delay times over a wider range of temperatures than the 4-component JP-8 surrogate fuel blend. The 5-component JP-7 surrogate blend predicted autoignition delay times lower than those of JP-8 blends and Jet-A fuel. The JP-8 and JP-7 mechanisms predictions, however, showed less agreement with the measurements towards the lower end of the temperature range (i.e., less than 900 K). Therefore, low temperature oxidation reactions and the sensitivities of the autoignition delays to reaction rate constants are still needed.