Prediction of Premixed Laminar Flame Structure and Burning Velocity of Aviation Fuel-Air Mixtures

The structure of a rich burner stabilised kerosene/O₂/N₂ flame is predicted using a detailed chemical kinetic mechanism where the kerosene is represented by a mixture of n-decane and toluene. The chemical reaction mechanism, consisting of 440 reactions between 84 species, is capable of predicting the experimentally determined flame structure of Douté et al. (1995) with good success using the measured temperature profile as input. Sensitivity and reaction rate analyses are carried out to identify the most significant reactions and based on this the reaction mechanism was reduced to one with only 165 reactions without any loss of accuracy. Burning velocities of kerosene-air mixtures were also determined over an extensive range of equivalence ratios at atmospheric pressure. The initial temperature of the mixture was also varied and burning velocities were found to increase with increasing temperature. Burning velocities calculated using both the detailed and reduced mechanisms were essentially identical.