A combined experimental and modeling study of combustion properties of an isoparaffinic alcohol-to-jet fuel

This work presents an investigation of fundamental combustion properties, specifically laminar burning velocity and ignition delay time, of an Alcohol-to-Jet Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (AtJ-SPK). Used in blends, this fuel is a sustainable aviation fuel that consists mostly of two long-chained, highly branched alkanes. Laminar burning velocities were measured at a preheat temperature of 473 K and pressures of 1 and 3 bar using the cone angle method. Ignition delay times of fuel-air mixtures diluted in nitrogen (N2) were experimentally determined behind reflected shock waves at two fuel-air equivalence ratios, 1.0 and 2.0, at a pressure of 16 bar. In addition to these experiments, a modeling study was conducted using a new chemical kinetic reaction mechanism developed to describe the combustion behavior of the investigated AtJ-SPK. The simulations show that the new detailed mechanism is able to predict sufficiently the laminar flame speed at ambient pressure as well as the ignition delay time at elevated pressure. Sensitivity analyses for laminar flame speed and ignition delay time were performed as well.