EXPERIMENTAL AND MODELING STUDY OF THE HIGH-TEMPERATURE IGNITION OF METHANE AND METHANE MIXTURES WITH ETHANE AND PROPANE

An important part of deepening our understanding of the reaction mecha nism of natural gas oxidation is validating a detailed model against e xperimental flame and ignition data. Ignition delays in shock-heated C H4-O-2 mixtures, with and without ignition-promoting additives, accoun t for most of the available validation data. Most, but not all, igniti on delays in such mixtures reported in the literature have been found to agree with calculations done using the GRI-Mech 1.2 model. Addition al reflected shock wave ignition experiments were done to explore poss ible reasons for the mismatches and to study the promotion of CH4 igni tion by small amounts of C2H6 and C3H8 additives. Empirical correlatio ns were derived that describe ignition delays in CH4-O-2-C2H6 (C3H8).