An experimentally validated surrogate fuel for the combustion kinetics of S-8, a synthetic paraffinic jet aviation fuel

Various combustion phenomena of S-8 POSF 4734, an alternative aviation fuel derived from natural gas via the Fischer-Tropsch process are measured including: 1) The oxidative reactivity of stoichiometric mixtures of S-8 POSF 4734 in O₂/N₂ at 12.5 atm and 500-1050 K, for a residence time of 1.8 s at a fixed carbon content of 0.3% using a variable pressure flow reactor. 2) The autoignition behavior of stoichiometric mixtures of S-8 POSF 4734 in air at 667-1223 K and ∼ 20 atm by the reflected shock technique. 3) The strained extinction limits of S-8 POSF 4734 diffusion flames at 1 atm. A surrogate fuel designed to emulate the gas phase chemical kinetic combustion phenomena of this target S-8 fuel is formulated in an a priori manner. The surrogate fuel is composed of n-dodecane/iso-octane and its performance is evaluated by the measurement of the same combustion phenomena as the target fuel under identical conditions. The performance of available kinetic models for S-8 surrogates is evaluated by analysis of their computations of this experimental data. Furthermore, an experimental study evaluating the significance of weakly isomerized alkanes as important components for surrogate fuels is presented.