A Continuous Multicomponent Fuel Flame Propagation and Chemical Kinetics Model

Abstract

A continuous multicomponent fuel flame propagation and chemical kinetics model has been developed. In the multicomponent fuel model, the theory of continuous thermodynamics was used to model the properties and composition of fuels such as gasoline. The difference between the current continuous multicomponent fuel model and previous similar models in the literature is that the source terms contributed by chemistry in the mean and the second moment transport equations have been considered. This new model was validated using results from a discrete multicomponent fuel model. In the flame propagation and chemical kinetics model, five improved combustion submodels were also integrated with the new continuous multicomponent fuel model. To consider the change in local fuel vapor mixture composition, a “primary reference fuel (PRF) adaptive” method is proposed that formulates a relationship between the fuel vapor mixture PRF number (or research octane number) and the fuel vapor mixture composition based on the mean molecular weight and/or variance of the fuel vapor mixture composition in each cell. Simulations of single droplet vaporization with a single-component fuel (iso-octane) were compared with multicomponent fuel cases.