Ignition of Various Lubricating Oil Compositions Using a Shock Tube

Abstract

With new restrictions imposed on gas turbine efficiencies and power outputs, lubricating oils are used at higher temperatures and harsher conditions leading to potential, unintended combustion. To establish an understanding of lubricating oil's resistance to combustion, a new spray injector system was utilized in the High-Pressure Shock Tube (HPST) Facility at the TEES Turbomachinery Laboratory at Texas A&M University. Two gas turbine oils (Mobil DTE 732 and Castrol Perfecto X32), a base mineral oil, and a surrogate (n-hexadecane) were tested at postreflected shock conditions at equivalence ratios near 2.5. Castrol Perfecto X32 was also characterized at an equivalence ratio near 1.2. All of the lubricating oils displayed ignition between temperatures of 1152 and 1383 K and near atmospheric pressures. To characterize combustion, two different definitions of ignition delay time (IDT) were considered: sidewall OH* chemiluminescence and sidewall pressure. Both definitions were used to create temperature-dependent correlations for each of the lubricating oils. In general, both definitions provided similar results within the accuracy of the measurements. One trend from the data herein is that the brand-name oils (Mobil DTE 732 and Castrol Perfecto X32) provided ignition delay times that were similar to each other but slightly larger than the corresponding mineral oil and n-hexadecane results. This difference could be attributed to the additives that are present in the brand-name oils.