Synergistic promotion of multi-component RP-3 kerosene low-temperature ignition with addition of radical activator

Scramjet engines play a vital role in hypersonic vehicles , but they suffer from the ignition issue due to the low reactivity of hydrocarbon fuel when flying at low flight Mach numbers . In this work, the low-temperature ignition performance of multi-component kerosene was significantly improved by only adding 3% borane-dimethyl sulfide (BDMS), resulting in the low-temperature ignition reducing greatly from 620 to 160 °C. This indicates that BDMS was an effective activator for multi-component kerosene. To analyze the low-temperature efficient activation mechanism of multi-component kerosene, paraxylene, ethylcyclohexane, n -decane, and n -tetradecane (each with added 3% BDMS) were studied as they are essential components in kerosene, respectively. The low-temperature ignition performance and the ignition process of n-alkane were significantly improved and changed for a single component of hydrocarbon. There was a synergistic promotion effect for multi-component hydrocarbons with the addition of activator BDMS. BDMS could significantly improve the low-temperature ignition performance and oxidation of ethylcychohexane in the presence of n -tetradecane. The addition of paraxylene promoted the evaporation of the hybrid fuel of n -tetradecane/ethylcyclohexane. The results obtained from this study could help to gain a better understanding of the low-temperature ignition of multi-component kerosene and provide an effective method to solve the scramjet ignition problem at low flight Mach numbers.