Development and Characterization of Standardized, Compact, and Automated Shock Tube for Fuel Characterization and Modeling

In order to develop and validate combustion kinetic models, fundamental combustion chemistry properties such as ignition delays are critical. We propose to design and develop a fully characterized, standardized, compact, diaphragmless and automated shock tube facility integrated with optical sensors with operating protocol. The proposed shock tube facility is designed for operation with low operating cost and allow field deployment. The proposed shock tube facility is expect to achieve the following features: (1) diaphragmless to remove the highly experience dependent conventional diaphragm for shock generation; (2) the shock tube has “Uâ€Â shape arrangement therefore it is compact and its overall length is only approximately 3 m; (3) the operational conditions will be standardized and fully characterized before deployment therefore the experimental uncertainty and error induced by non-expert operation could be significantly minimized. The shock tube facility will be integrated with optical sensors to achieve fully automated data collection including autoingition delays and speciation histories.