Development of advanced compression ignition and low-temperature combustion engines is increasingly dependent on chemical kinetic ignition models. However, rigorous experimental validation of kinetic models has been limited under engine-like conditions. For example, shock tubes and rapid compression machines are usually restricted to premixed gas-phase studies, precluding the study of heterogeneous combustion and the use of low-volatility surrogates for commercial diesel fuels. The Ignition Quality Tester (IQT) is a constant-volume spray combustion system designed to measure ignition delay of low-volatility fuels, having the potential to validate ignition models. However, a better understanding of the IQT's fuel spray and combustion processes is necessary to enable chemical kinetic studies. As a first step, n-heptane was studied because numerous reduced chemical mechanisms are available in the literature as it is a common diesel fuel surrogate, as well as a calibration fuel for the IQT. A modified version of the KIVA-3V software was utilized to develop a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model that accurately and efficiently reproduces n-heptane ignition behavior and temporally resolves temperature and equivalence ratio regions inside the IQT. Measured fuel spray characteristics (e.g., spray-tip velocity, spray cone-angle, and flow oscillation) for n-heptane were programmed into the CFD model. Sensitivity analyses of fuel droplet size and velocity showed that their effects on ignition delay were small compared to the large chemical effects of increased chain branching in the isomers 2-methylhexane and 2,4dimethylpentane. CFD model predictions of ignition delay using reduced/skeletal chemical mechanisms for n-heptane (60-, 42-, and 33-species, and one-step chemistry) were compared, again indicating that chemical kinetics control the ignition process.

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Development of practical combustion applications implementing plasma-assisted ignition technology for improved efficiency or fuel versatility will benefit from computationally-feasible models which include the plasma processes governing experimentally-observed combustion enhancement. A detailed chemical kinetic reaction mechanism for methane combustion with relevant plasma reactions has been compiled, including a set of electron impact cross sections for elastic and inelastic collisions with reactants, intermediate species, and products of methane combustion. In addition to electron impact reactions, the present mechanism includes reactions involving vibrationally-and electronically-excited species, dissociative recombination reactions, three-body recombination reactions, charge transfer reactions, and relaxation reactions, taken from the literature where available, and otherwise calculated using published correlations. While many past mechanisms have made assumptions limiting their use to specific regimes such as nanosecond discharges or microwave-enhanced flames, the present mechanism is generalized to include kinetics relating to both high-and low-energy excitation. The chemical kinetic mechanism is designed for use in a two-temperature chemical kinetics solver that tracks the electron temperature in addition to the gas temperature, as non-thermal plasma regimes characteristic to plasma-assisted combustion will typically have electron energies out of equilibrium with the energy of the heavier gas particles. Analysis considers the effects of initial temperature, mixture composition, electron concentration, and electric field strength on plasma ignition effectiveness. As commonly practiced, costly calculation of the Boltzmann equation at every time step is avoided by pre-calculating electron impact reaction rate coefficients using a Boltzmann equation solver. Here we evaluate the pre-calculated rates assumption, showing that ignition predictions depend on the gas composition at which the electron impact reaction rates are generated, but that induced errors are acceptable given the uncertainty in other model parameters such as impact cross sections. Finally, chemical kinetic sensitivity analysis highlights the importance of reactions governing free charge balance and nitrogen vibrational excitation when plasma effects on combustion enhancement are strong.

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