A New Detailed Ethanol Kinetic Mechanism at Engine-Relevant Conditions

Ethanol is considered
one of the most attractive renewable energy
sources in the modern days. A chemical mechanism on ethanol is generated
in this work to predict the performance of this fuel in engine-relevant
operating conditions. To build this mechanism, a reaction mechanism
generator (RMG) is utilized. The generated mechanism is compared against
experimental results to find its accuracy. Important reactions responsible
for the results are selected through sensitivity and path flux analysis.
The rate parameter of important reactions is further adjusted from
available literature data. The final mechanism is named PCRL-Mech1
and consists of 67 species and 1016 reactions. This mechanism shows
an excellent agreement with experimental results of laminar burning
speed and ignition delay time (using a shock tube and rapid compression
machine). The mechanism is validated at temperatures, pressures, and
equivalence ratios of 300–600 K, 1–10 atm, and 0.6–1.4
for laminar burning speed, respectively. For ignition delay time verification,
temperatures of 820–1450 K, pressures of 3.3–80 atm,
and equivalence ratios of 0.3–2 are considered. The newly developed
mechanism is also validated for species concentration through a flow
reactor, a jet stirred reactor, and a partially premixed counter flow
flame. Finally, the PCRL-Mech1 mechanism is compared with six-top
mechanisms available in literature. A normalized ratio of accuracy
and computational time for other mechanisms with respect to PCRL-Mech1
is generated. It is found that PCRL-Mech1 has better combination of
accuracy and time throughout all the varied operating conditions.