Experimental Characterization of Flame Structure and Soot Volume Fraction of Premixed Kerosene Jet A-1 and Surrogate Flames

Abstract

Modeling the chemical reactions and soot processes in kerosene flames is important to support the design of future generations of low-emission aircraft engines. To develop and validate these models, detailed experimental data from model flames with well-defined boundary conditions are needed. Currently, only few data from experiments with real aircraft engine fuels are available. This paper presents measurements of temperature, species and soot volume fraction profiles in premixed, flat flames using Jet A-1 kerosene and a two-component surrogate blend. Measurements were performed using a combination of TDLAS, GC and laser extinction. The results show that the flame structure in terms of temperature and species profiles of the kerosene and surrogate flames are very similar but differ greatly in the resulting soot volume fractions. Furthermore, the study shows that the available chemical mechanisms can correctly predict the temperature profiles of the flames but show significant differences from the experimentally observed species profiles. The differences in the sooting tendency of the kerosene and the surrogate are further investigated using detailed chemical mechanisms.

Keywords

• premixed flame
• TDLAS
• soot
• jet fuel
• combustion