Very High Pressure Single Pulse Shock Tube Studies of Aromatic Species

The principal focus of this research program is aimed at understanding the oxidation and pyrolysis chemistry of primary aromatic molecules and radicals with the goal of developing a comprehensive kinetic model at conditions that are relevant to practical combustion devices. A very high pressure single pulse shock tube is used to obtain experimental data over a wide pressure range in the high pressure regime, 5-1000 bars, at pre-flame temperatures for fuel pyrolysis and oxidation over a broad spectrum of equivalence ratios. Stable species sampled from the shock tube are analyzed using standard chromatographic techniques using GC/MS-PDD and GC/TCD-FID. Experimental data from the HPST (stable species profiles) and data from other laboratories (if available) are simulated using kinetic models (if available) to develop a comprehensive model that can describe aromatics oxidation and pyrolysis over a wide range of experimental conditions. The shock tube has been heated (1000C) recently to minimize effects due to condensation of aromatic, polycyclic and other heavy species. Work during this grant period has focused on 7 main areas summarized in the final technical report