An experimental study on the laminar burning velocities of RP-3 kerosene and its surrogate fuel at elevated pressures and temperatures

This work develops a new surrogate fuel for RP-3 kerosene. Based on five optimizing targets (molecular weight, hydrogen/carbon ratio, cetane number, lower heating value and threshold sooting index) to emulate the chemical and physical properties of RP-3 kerosene, the surrogate fuel was determined to contain 22% n-dodecane, 15% iso-cetane, 48% decalin and 15% 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene. The laminar burning velocities of RP-3 kerosene and its surrogate fuel were investigated at the unburnt temperature of 413, 443, 473, 503 K, pressure of 1, 2, 5 bar and equivalence ratio of 0.6 similar to 1.6 in a constant volume combustion bomb. The results show that the laminar burning velocities of the surrogate fuel were in good agreement with that of RP-3 kerosene. Meanwhile, a kinetic model was adopted, which well predicted the laminar burning velocities of RP-3 kerosene and the surrogate fuel. Finally, the flame propagation process and flame instability of RP-3 kerosene under elevated temperatures and pressures conditions were analyzed. It was found that the surrogate fuel was slightly different from RP-3 kerosene in terms of the combustion instability under fuel-rich conditions.

Automated summary

This work develops a new surrogate fuel for RP-3 kerosene and validates its consistency with the original fuel in terms of combustion characteristics through experiments and kinetic modeling. In addition, the flame propagation process and instability of the fuel under high temperature and pressure conditions were analyzed.