VALIDATION AND UPDATING OF DETAILED KINETIC MECHANISMS - THE CASE OF ETHANE OXIDATION

We have investigated experimentally the oxidation of ethane in a perfe ctly stirred reactor in the temperature range 870-1080 K and for fuel- air stoichiometric ratio ranging from 0.25 to 1.27. The concentrations of the main molecular species have been meassured by probe sampling a nd GC analysis. These experimental results have been compared with pre dictions of three popular detailed kinetic mechanisms previously prese nted in the literature. A reasonable agreement between the experimenta l results and the model predictions has been found for almost all the species and the mechanisms. The only relevant exception is acetylene, which is greatly overpredicted by one of the mechanisms for all the in vestigated conditions. Parametric sensitivity analysis has been used f or updating such a mechanism in order to improve the agreement with ou r experimental observations.