Physics-Based and Computationally Efficient Combustion Chemistry Modules with Acceptable Uncertainty for Air Force Relevant Hydrocarbon Fuels

The overall goal of this project is to validate and enhance the latest available combustion kinetics models for fuels that are of relevance to the Air Force propulsion systems. To achieve this goal, Combustion Science & Engineering, Inc. and Stanford University will focus on evaluating the performance of the existing jet fuel models using selected experimental data from the literature. Sensitivity analysis and species flux analysis will be performed to identify the reactions or reaction subsets that contribute to the uncertainty of the model predictions at these conditions. This information will be used to develop an experimental plan to acquire data for model improvement in Phase II. In addition, CSE will develop methodology to optimize reduced kinetic models for CFD simulations using the existing rkmGen software. These reduced kinetic models will be evaluated for computational efficiency and accuracy by simulating canonical test problems using Large Eddy Simulation