The chemical heat sink of endothermic
hydrocarbon fuels (EHFs)
is generally dependent on its thermal cracking in the cooling channel,
which is accompanied and limited by the formation of carbon deposit.
In this work, HF-1 (a kerosene-based EHF) was electrically heated
in the rectangular, square, and circular channels with the same cross-sectional
area under 3.5 MPa to study the effect of cooling channel geometric
structures on the thermal cracking and carbon deposition behaviors.
It was found that under similar conditions (inlet flow rate of fuel,
pressure, outlet temperature), conversions of HF-1 in both rectangular
and square channels were slightly higher than that in the circular
one with high selectivity to methane but lower selectivities to the
primary cracking products (such as 1-hexene and 1-heptene, etc.).
In addition, more carbon deposits were formed in the rectangular and
square channels, especially around the corners of channels. Based
on the CFD simulation, the possible reasons should be ascribed to
the difference in the gradient uniformity near the wall of different
channels. The higher temperature and lower velocity in the boundary
layer of the quadratic channels might cause the thermal cracking to
be slightly severer and the rapid secondary reactions to form carbon
deposit.
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