Methane/ethane/propane mixture oxidation at high pressures and at high, intermediate and low temperatures

The oxidation of methane/ethane/propane mixtures, for blends containing 90/6.6/3.3, 70/15/15 and 70/20/10 percent by volume of each fuel respectively in ‘air,’ has been studied over the temperature range 770–1580 K, at compressed gas pressures of approximately 1, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 atm, and at equivalence ratios of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 using both a high-pressure shock tube and a rapid compression machine. The present work represents the most comprehensive set of methane/ethane/propane ignition delay time measurements available in a single study which extends the composition envelope over an industrially relevant pressure range. It is also the first such study to present ignition delay times at significantly overlapping conditions from both a rapid compression machine and a shock tube. The data were simulated using a detailed chemical kinetic model comprised of 289 species and 1580 reactions. It was found that qualitatively, the model reproduces correctly the effect of change in equivalence ratio and pressure, predicting that fuel-rich, high-pressure mixtures ignite fastest while fuel-lean, low-pressure mixtures ignite slowest. Moreover, the reactivity as a function of temperature is well captured with the model predicting negative temperature coefficient behavior similar to the experiments. Quantitatively the model is in general excellent agreement with the experimental results but is faster than experiment for the fuel-rich (ϕ=2.0ϕ=2.0) mixture containing the highest quantity of propane (70/15/15 mixture) at the lowest temperatures (770–900 K).