Published February 3, 2025 | In Press, Journal Pre-proof
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ASTM-E659 standardized test analysis and results for Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

Improvements on ASTM-E659 apparatus are used to investigate autoignition (AIT) of a Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (SPK). The apparatus injection system has been automated, and the temperature acquisition system has been improved to reduce variability due to human factors. The SPK was compared with a Jet A standard, POSF4658. The two fuels have a similar range of combustion behaviors but the SPK shows a lower AIT and lower effective activation energy than Jet A. A statistical analysis is proposed to quantify the likelihood of ignition for a range of injected fuel volumes and types of ignition events. We observe that luminous ignition (Mode I) and non-luminous cool flame (Mode III) both result in a vigorous reaction and comparable peak temperatures. This highlights the importance of using the temperature signal to detect ignition instead of relying only on flame visualization. Surveys of the temperature distribution inside the hot vessel demonstrate that a single point measurement is not sufficient to characterize the temperature and that subtle changes in the assembly of the apparatus can significantly alter the temperature distribution and the measured AIT.

Copyright and License

© 2025 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Acknowledgement

This research was carried out in the Explosion Dynamics Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. This work was supported by The Boeing Company through a Strategic Research and Development Relationship Agreement CT-BA-GTA-1 and C. Fouchier was supported by the HORIZON-MSCA-2021 Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, Project # 101063624. The authors thank Mona Shahgholi, Manager of The Mass Spectrometry Facility at the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering department of Caltech , for her support and essential help on the fuel composition analysis.

Contributions

Charline Fouchier: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Validation, Methodology, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Joseph Shepherd: Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Validation, Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization.

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Additional details

Created:
February 4, 2025
Modified:
February 4, 2025