Effects of refueling position and residence time on pre-combustion cracking characteristic of aviation kerosene RP-3

Kerosene-air detonation is the key to the application of rotating detonation engine in aviation. The kerosene-air mixture has low activity and requires a lot of energy for direct initiation. In this study, a novel fuel treatment device, pre-combustion cracking reactor, is proposed to produce prone detonation gaseous fuel with smaller detonation cell size and critical initiation energy by cracking aviation kerosene RP-3 on-line. The effects of the refueling position and residence time on cracking products distribution were investigated at refueling distance of 100–260 mm and sampling distance of 100–260 mm with interval 40 mm under the fuel ratio of 3.9, 4.4, 5.2, 5.9 and 6.9. It is observed that aviation kerosene RP-3 was converted into hydrogen, acetylene and other products detected by gas chromatograph. The cracking products account for 21% of the total cracking gas volume. In the experiments, the maximum yields and selectivities of hydrogen and acetylene were 18.9 mg/s and 95 mg/s, 25.7% and 18.9%, respectively, at refueling distance of 100 mm and fuel ratio of 6.9, and the maximum energy conversion efficiency was 74% at refueling distance of 100 mm and fuel ratio of 3.9. The average C/H ratio of cracking products is 6.21, which is close to that of mono-olefin. Moreover, the effect of fuel ratio and refueling distance on C/H ratio is not significant.