Systematic construction of combustion reaction model for large hydrocarbon fuels based on a two-step reaction scheme

Understanding the combustion chemistry of large hydrocarbons in practical gasoline, diesel and jet fuels is critical for the reduction of pollutant emissions and increase of fuel and engine efficiencies. The primary objective of the present study is to illustrate the methodology and application of a simplified modeling approach based on a two-step reaction scheme (TSRS) for describing the combustion chemistry of large hydrocarbon fuels under engine-relevant high-temperature conditions. Under such conditions, the combustion process of large hydrocarbons consists of two distinct subsequent reaction steps: the first step is the prompt fuel decomposition, converting the parent fuel to critical intermediate products; the second step is the oxidation reactions of the intermediates. Particularly, the second step is slower, thus rate-limiting, controlling the heat release and formation of final combustion products of the entire combustion reaction process. A systematic analysis by mathematical methods was performed to obtain a unified treatment for hydrocarbons with different molecular sizes. Based on the analysis of characteristic time scale of elementary reaction and steady-state assumption, TSRS used a fuel decomposition submodel to describe the fuel molecule decompose into critical intermediate species, including ethene, propene, butenes and methane for n-alkanes, and used a detailed foundational fuel chemistry mechanism to describe the oxidation reaction of the intermediates. The entire TSRS reaction model for large hydrocarbons is compact, consisting ∼110 species and ∼800 reactions, which can be further reduced. It was shown in the present study that, by revealing the relationship between the functional group composition of linear alkanes and the distribution of intermediates, and in combination with the rate criterion, the fuel decomposition submodel can be systematically generated to facilitate the automatic construction of compact kinetic models. One unified TSRS combustion reaction model was created and demonstrated for several large hydrocarbons ranging from C₈ to C₁₆, which was validated by comprehensive datasets, including speciation, ignition delay times and laminar flame speeds.