Experimental and modeling study of the autoignition for diesel and n-alcohol blends from ethanol to n-pentanol in shock tube and rapid compression machine

The ignition delay times (IDTs) of n-alcohol/diesel blends were measured in a heated shock tube (ST) and a heated rapid compression machine (RCM). Three sets of blends were formulated to investigate the effect of n-alcohol (the volume ratio of n-alcohol/diesel being 20%/80% for four blends), cetane number (CN = 43, the volume ratio of n-alcohol/diesel being 20%/80% ethanol/diesel, 20.5%/79.5% n-propanol/diesel, 23.5%/76.6% n-butanol/diesel, 25.8%/74.2% n-pentanol/diesel), and oxygen content (mass fraction of oxygen w O2  = 6.65%, the volume ratio of n-alcohol/diesel being 20%/80% ethanol/diesel, 25.6%/74.4% n-propanol/diesel, 31.4%/68.6% n-butanol/diesel, 37.2%/62.8% n-pentanol/diesel) on the autoignition characteristics. In the RCM temperature region, the IDTs decrease with increasing n-alcohol chain length from ethanol to n-pentanol for all three sets of blends, while those in the ST temperature region show indiscernible variations. Interestingly, the intersection of IDTs for ethanol/diesel blend with other n-alcohol/diesel blends is observed when the temperature is below ~700 K. A recently-released detailed mechanism from the CRECK modeling group was used to predict the experimental results. The simulations show relatively good agreement with high-temperature (HT) ignition data, while the mechanism pronouncedly overpredicts the reactivity of blends at low-to-intermediate temperatures. Sensitivity analyses at three temperatures of 675 K, 800 K, and 1300 K were conducted to identify the dominant reactions during the autoignition of 20% n-alcohol/80% diesel blends and to kinetically elaborate and discuss the discrepancies between simulations and experiments. At the end, a preliminary mechanism tune-up was carried out grounded on the sensitivity analyses. The improved mechanism regains its predictive ability for IDTs of 20% n-butanol/80% diesel blend at RCM temperatures, while fails to precisely simulate the remaining three blends.