Experimental and kinetic modeling of the combustion chemistry of high-energy density fuel JP-10

Abstract

A significant knowledge gap exists regarding the fundamental oxidation kinetics of JP-10, the fuel of choice for high-speed aerospace applications, due to the limited availability of relevant experimental validation targets. This work investigates the pyrolytic and oxidative behaviors of JP-10 using two distinct flow reactor setups operating at 0.04 atm and 1 atm, which were equipped with a synchrotron vacuum ultraviolet photoionization mass spectrometer (SVUV-PIMS) and gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS), respectively. Quantitative profiles of key oxygenated intermediates, formaldehyde (CH₂O) and carbon monoxide (CO), were characterized to bridge the data gap in previous studies. At an initial temperature of 470 K and a pressure of 1 atm, the laminar flame speed was determined over an equivalence ratio ranging from 0.8 to 1.4 using a constant volume combustion vessel. Based on the above datasets, the fuel decomposition submodel of the developed HyChem model was updated by constraining the oxidation of the fuel radical. The updated JP-10 HyChem model was validated using independent datasets, including ignition delay time, laminar flame speed, and species profiles, which were strictly excluded from the parameters optimization process. Results showed that the present model successfully resolved the deviations between the measurements and the earlier model.