A new surrogate fuel for emulating the physical and chemical properties of RP-3 kerosene

A new surrogate fuel was developed to emulate both the physical and chemical properties of RP-3 kerosene. Six property targets were chosen for the new surrogate fuel formulation, which are hydrogen/carbon ratio, average molecular weight, cetane number, low calorific value, density and viscosity. The surrogate fuel was developed with only those species readily available in existing kinetic mechanisms, that are n-decane, n-dodecane, iso-cetane, methylcyclohexane and toluene. The mole fractions of the above components are 14%, 10%, 30%, 36%, 10%, respectively, which determined by an optimizer based on the error of the property targets between the surrogate fuel and RP-3 kerosene. Comparisons with RP-3 kerosene show that the newly developed surrogate fuel reproduces the six property targets of RP-3 kerosene. Further experimental investigations were performed in a chemical shock tube and constant volume bomb to obtain the ignition delay and laminar combustion characteristics of the new surrogate fuel and RP-3 kerosene. The results show that the ignition delay times and laminar combustion velocities of the surrogate fuel are in good agreement with that of RP-3 kerosene.