Abstract

Understanding the combustion chemistry of ethanol is critical for continued proliferation and use in future internal combustion engines (ICEs) that will operate in a downsized, turbo-charged, high compression configuration. Detailed chemical kinetic reaction mechanisms already exist for ethanol, which have been validated over a range of operating conditions; however, capturing the conditions that may be seen in future ICEs requires extension of these conditions, namely at elevated pressure. Investigating the kinetics of ethanol existing in a combustion system first involve, for example, understanding a key global metric like ignition delay time (IDT) and measuring major or minor species in a time resolved fashion capturing both formation and decomposition stages. A shock tube facility offers ideal (thermodynamically) operation that can be used to study the high pressure kinetics across a wide range of temperatures, all the while enabling non- intrusive temporal in situ measurements within the given test time. Oxidation of ethanol was carried out behind reflected shock waves at elevated pressures by measuring IDTs and carbon monoxide (CO) time-histories, the latter of which utilized a distributed feedback quantum cascade laser centered at a wavelength in the infrared (IR). With the gathered data, various ignition regimes and sensitive chemistry were investigated for high pressure CO formation. Since CO is an important product of combustion, having an accurate prediction of its formation is necessary to preliminarily understand the efficiency and sustainability of future engine designs. Moving forward, hazardous products like CO among other harmful emissions will have stricter governmental constrains, which further supports studies as these that aid in the continued refinement of such chemical kinetic mechanisms.

Notes

If this is your thesis or dissertation, and want to learn how to access it or for more information about readership statistics, contact us at STARS@ucf.edu

Graduation Date

2020

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Vasu Sumathi, Subith

Degree

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (M.S.M.E.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Degree Program

Mechanical Engineering; Thermo-Fluids Track

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0007988; DP0023128

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0023128

Language

English

Release Date

5-15-2021

Length of Campus-only Access

1 year

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Download

Share

COinS