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Article history: Diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends have been the focus of intense research quite recently. Diesel is a com-
Received 12 August 2016 plex fuel composed of hundreds of compounds indicating the difficulty of using diesel for experimental
Received in revised form 2 November 2016 studies associated with numerical simulations. Biodiesel is also a complex mixture of methyl esters.
Accepted 11 November 2016
When injected in a diesel engine in the pure form, it induces changes in combustion behavior which
can impact pollutants emission. Consequently simplified synthetic fuels, called ‘‘surrogate fuels”, with
shorter chain lengths and known physical chemical properties are chosen to carry combustion studies.
Keywords:
Finally, ethanol is one of the liquid alternative fuels most widely studied. The present paper focuses on
Diesel
Biodiesel
numerical studies of the combustion of diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends using 0D auto-ignition delay
Ethanol and 1-D freely-propagating gaseous premixed flame configurations. The objective is to develop and val-
Kinetic modeling idate a new chemical scheme by carefully combining two existing chemical schemes from the literature.
Auto-ignition The first one is the scheme due to Andrae (2011) for the combustion of diesel-ethanol blends and the sec-
Freely propagating flames ond one is due to Luo et al. (2012) for a biodiesel surrogate. The approach consists of merging non com-
mon elementary reactions from both chemical schemes and analyzing the common reactions (having
different reaction constants) in both chemical schemes in order to chose most relevant chemical path-
ways from each scheme so that the resulting merged scheme gives a good prediction of the auto-
ignition delay and laminar flame speed.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2016.11.039
0016-2361/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
412 D. Alviso et al. / Fuel 191 (2017) 411–426
number of research works in the development of either kinetic carbon numbers predominantly in the range of C 10 C 20 . The com-
modeling or experimental database of these fuels, this field has position varies widely, depending on the crude oils used, the refinery
experienced a significant amount of recent developments. processes available, the overall balance of product demand, and the
Concerning diesel, there has been much recent progress in the product specifications. North American diesel is composed by alka-
area of surrogate fuels for diesel. In the last few years, experiments nes (25–50 vol.%), mono- and poly-aromatics (15–40 vol.%) and
and modeling have been performed on higher molecular weight cycloalkanes or naphtenes (mono- and polycyclic, 20–40 vol.%) [1].
components of relevance to diesel fuel [4]. There has been much recent progress in the area of surrogate
Concerning biodiesel, methyl decanoate C 11 H22 O2 (MD) has fuels for diesel. In the last few years, experiments and modeling
been proposed as a good surrogate due to the length of the hydro- have been performed on higher molecular weight components of
carbon chain. Several authors proposed detailed and skeletal kinet- relevance to diesel fuel. Chemical kinetic schemes have been devel-
ics for this surrogate [5–9]. In addition to methyl decanoate oped for n-alkanes up to 16 carbon atoms. Also, there has been
reaction mechanism, other surrogates have been recently proposed experimental and modeling works on lower molecular weight sur-
[10–18]. In a previous work [19], we have combined two biodiesel rogate components such as n-decane and n-dodecane that are most
chemical schemes due to [6,13] in order to perform numerical relevant to jet fuel surrogates, but are also relevant to diesel surro-
studies in a counterflow flame of combined methane-air and gates where simulations of the full boiling point range is desired
biodiesel-air mixtures. [4].
Finally, ethanol (C 2 H5 OH) is one of the liquid alternative fuels The choice of a surrogate depends on the chosen application
most widely studied. In vehicles, it is mainly used as a fuel addi- target. Extensive reviews of different types of diesel surrogate fuels
tive, especially blended with gasoline to enhance octane number have been made by different authors [1,29,4].
and improve combustion in spark-ignition engines, but also as a Straight-alkanes are usually the most abundant components in
renewable alternative fuel, specially in Brazil [2]. liquid fuels. For the past decades, surrogates with short carbon
In recent years, systematic efforts have been made on the use of chains, such as n-heptane, are usually employed as the surrogates
biodiesel and ethanol fuels in diesel engines. Compared to diesel for diesel fuels. Moreover, chemical schemes for long-chain
fuel, the cetane number, flash point and calorific value of ethanol straight-alkanes such as n-dodecane, n-tetradecane, and n-
are much lower, which restricts its direct application in diesel hexadecane (HXN) have been developed owing to their compara-
engines. To overcome these difficulties, ethanol might be blended ble boiling range to those of the diesel fuels [30].
with biodiesel, expected to improve the overall low temperature Based on the review of Farrell et al. [1], toluene is recommended
flow properties, viscosity, heating value and cetane number. Mean- as the near-term surrogate component for aromatics, by taking
while, if combustion could be shifted towards lower temperatures, into the considerations of the availability of kinetic schemes and
NOx and PM emissions could be reduced simultaneously [20]. data for all aromatic compounds. Besides, toluene is often inte-
Recently a skeletal scheme was constructed for biodiesel and grated into various diesel surrogate fuel blends. For instance, a typ-
ethanol (referred as Bio-Ethanol) combustion by [20], consisting ical surrogate fuel is toluene reference fuel (TRF), a simple toluene/
of 116 species and 523 reactions. This scheme was validated by n-heptane mixture. Corcione et al. [31] proposed a diesel surrogate
performing 0-D ignition delay predictions, as well as 3-D numerical composed of 76 vol.% n-heptane and 24 vol.% toluene (TRF24) in
simulations against the experimental results. volume in the diesel spray in a constant volume vessel. Andrae
Diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends have been the focus of intense [32] proposed a chemical scheme for TRF blends and investigated
research quite recently [21–25]. Most of these works have been the auto-ignition by a single-zone adiabatic model both theoreti-
done using a Diesel engine, however in our knowledge, none of cally and experimentally. This scheme consists of a semi-detailed
them concerns kinetic modeling. description of toluene oxidation and skeletal mechanisms of iso-
The present paper concerns numerical studies of the combus- octane and n-heptane. Andrae [32] chemical scheme has the dis-
tion of diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends in a 0D constant-pressure tinction of including ethanol chemistry.
auto-ignition and 1-D freely-propagating gaseous premixed flame According to recent papers of Hernandez et al. [33,34], a mix-
configurations. The objective is to develop and validate a new ture of toluene and n-heptane was the best diesel surrogate in
chemical scheme for the combustion of diesel-biodiesel-ethanol comparison to other species surrogates. Luo et al. [35] have shown
blends while guaranteeing reproducing correctly the principal fea- that the ignition delay and smoke emission of TRF20 (80% n-
tures of the original pure fuels combustion characteristics. This is heptane/20% toluene in volume) were closer to that of diesel fuel
done by carefully combining two chemical schemes: one originally as compared with the pure n-heptane and TRF30 (70% n-
for the combustion of diesel/ethanol and the other for biodiesel. heptane/30% toluene in volume) fuel.
The common reactions with different reaction constants in both Following these works, in the present paper TRF20 (80% n-
chemical schemes were identified and analyzed in order to obtain heptane/20% toluene in volume) have been chosen as a diesel sur-
reasonable results for the pure fuels separately. rogate and the chemical kinetics due to Andrae [32] has been used
Numerical simulations were performed using the REGATH pack- as a base to carry out the numerical studies. As explained before,
age developed at EM2C laboratory [26–28], that takes into account this scheme includes ethanol chemistry, therefore, to simulate
the detailed kinetics and multicomponent transport phenomena. diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends combustion, chemical reaction
The new combined model was validated comparing auto- pathways for biodiesel are needed.
ignition delays and laminar flame speeds of the pure fuels using
the combined model and the original models, as well as experimen- 2.2. Biodiesel chemical structure and chemical schemes
tal results. Then, auto ignition delays and laminar flame speeds of
diesel-biodiesel and diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends are presented. Biodiesel is a complex mixture of methyl esters with different
chain lengths and degrees of unsaturation. Rapeseed-derived bio-
2. Diesel and biodiesel chemical structure and schemes diesel (most produced around the world [36]) concentrations and
mole fractions has been estimated [19]. In comparison to the val-
2.1. Diesel chemical structure and chemical schemes ues found in literature [5], it corresponds to the classical composi-
tion of biodiesel obtained from this oil (see Table 1).
Diesel is a complex combination of hydrocarbons produced by The structures of the components (methyl Palmitate, stearate,
the distillation of crude oil. It consists of hydrocarbons having oleate, linoleate and linolenate) show considerable similarities,
D. Alviso et al. / Fuel 191 (2017) 411–426 413
Fig. 1. Structures of the main components of rapeseed-derived biodiesel. Fig. 2. Biodiesel surrogates chemical structure.
414 D. Alviso et al. / Fuel 191 (2017) 411–426
In order to validate the feasibility of the new developed skeletal reactions has been chosen to represent biodiesel chemistry. Now,
mechanism, 0-D ignition delay testing, reflected shock tube exper- to simulate diesel-biodiesel-ethanol/air flames, the two chemical
iment validation and 3-D engine testing about cylinder pressure, mechanisms should be merged, species representing these fuels
heat release rate and NOx emission trends were conducted at dif- must indeed be present in a single reaction scheme.
ferent conditions. The scheme proposed in this work will be designed from the
Concerning diesel-biodiesel blends, a compact combined reac- original oxidation framework of Andrae [32]. This chemical scheme
tion mechanism for diesel engine simulations is proposed by Ng is used as a starting base model. Then additional species and reac-
et al. [15] through the combination of three-component mecha- tions which are present in the kinetic scheme of Luo et al. [13]
nisms using a chemical class-based approach. This mechanism should be included in the Andrae’s scheme.
comprises the reaction schemes of methyl crotonate (MC), methyl The common species in both chemical schemes are 30 (see
butanoate (MB) and n-heptane. The final mechanism comprises 80 Table 2). Therefore, the new combined scheme will consist of
species and 299 reactions. The compact-sized mechanism is vali- 235 species; 150 from Andrae, and 85 from Zhaoyu Luo.
dated against 234 test conditions ranging from initial temperatures There are also 105 common elementary reactions in both mech-
of 750–1350 K, pressures of 40–60 bar and equivalence ratios of anisms, but with different reaction constants. The new combined
0.4–1.5. scheme will have 1113 elementary reactions; 758 from Andrae,
A mechanism suitable to simulate biodiesel, diesel and their and (460 105 ¼ 355) from Zhaoyu Luo.
blend fuels was presented by An et al. [16]. A tri-component skele- This way of merging guarantees reproducing the principal ther-
tal reaction mechanism consisting of methyl decanoate, methyl-9- modynamic features of the pure fuels combustion characteristics.
decenoate, and n-heptane was developed for biodiesel combustion However, the common reactions (105) in both chemical schemes
in diesel engine. It comprises 112 species participating in 498 reac- should be carefully analyzed and chosen from one or the other
tions with the CO, NOx and soot formation mechanisms embedded. scheme in order to obtain reasonable results for the pure fuels
Extensive validations were performed for the developed skeletal separately.
reaction mechanism with 0-D ignition delay testing and 3-D In order to identify the sensitive reactions for the estimation of
engine simulations. the pure fuels auto-ignition delay and flame speed, 5 packages
In the present work, a chemical scheme for the simulation of the were made as explained below:
combustion of diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends is needed. The
scheme due to Andrae [32] developed for n-heptane-toluene Package I: 18 reactions containing species H2 ; OH; HO2 ; H2 O2
blends (TRF) has been chosen as a base and we combine it to the Package II: 19 reactions containing species HCO; CH2 O;
scheme due to Luo et al. [13], which consists of 115 species and CH3 O; CH3 OH
460 reactions for the combustion of a biodiesel surrogate: methyl Package III: 23 reactions containing species CH; CH2 ; CH3 ; CH4
decanoate(MD)/methyl 9-decenoate(MD9D)/n-heptane. This latter Package IV: 30 reactions containing species C 2 H6 ; C 2 H5 ; C 2 H4 ;
scheme has already been combined to another scheme in our C 2 H3 ; C 2 H2 ; C 2 H5 CHO
recent paper [19]. As proposed by Luo et al. [13], 50% n-heptane, Package V: 15 reactions containing species C 7 H16 ; C 7 H152 ;
25% methyl decanoate and 25% methyl-9-decenoate (vol) was the CH2 CO; HCCO
biodiesel surrogate chosen to carry the numerical studies.
These 5 packages were chosen taking into account similar struc-
tures of species and reactions groups. These packages along with
3. Numerical approach
the Arrhenius reaction constants of Andrae [32] and Luo et al.
[13] are given in Appendix (Tables 6–10). Some common species,
The kinetic modeling for the combustion of diesel-biodiesel-
such as O; H; O2 ; H2 O; CO and CO2 , are present in more than one
ethanol blends in a 0D constant-pressure auto-ignition and 1-D
package; whereas N 2 and pC 4 H9 species are not present in any
freely-propagating flame were performed using the REGATH
package.
package [26–28] with detailed thermochemical and transport
The first important point to note in these tables is that, gener-
properties developed at EM2C laboratory. The inputs to each sim-
ally, Luo et al. [13] scheme gives forward and reverse constants,
ulation include a chemical kinetic reaction mechanism, a dataset of
while that of Andrae [32] gives only forward constants. Now, in
thermochemical properties and a dataset of transport properties.
order to easily identify the common reactions with different for-
Operating conditions for 0D auto-ignition diesel-biodiesel-
ward constants in both chemical schemes, we have highlighted
ethanol/air flames have been chosen considering the equivalence
them in bold. As one can see, the number of these reactions is
ratio / ¼ 0:5; 1:0 and 1:5, for pressures of 1, 10 and 100 atm and
not negligible. In fact, in Package I, 15 out of 18 reactions have dif-
different temperatures (1000=T ¼ 0:5–1:42).
ferent forward constants; in Package II, 14 out of 19 reactions; in
Operating conditions for 1D freely-propagating premixed
Package III, 17 out of 23 reactions; in Package IV, 23 out of 30 reac-
diesel-biodiesel-ethanol/air flames have been chosen considering
tions; and finally in Package V, 9 out of 15 reactions have different
the equivalence ratio (/): from / ¼ 0:6 to / ¼ 1:4. The mixture
forward constants.
flow is kept at an initial temperature of 300 K and 470 K. The pres-
sure is equal to one atmosphere.
Table 3
7 combined schemes examined.
Fig. 4. Diesel/air auto-ignition delay as a function of pressure and temperature Fig. 5. Diesel/air auto-ignition delay as a function of pressure and temperature
(/ ¼ 1:0) using the original scheme of Andrae 2011 and the combined model (/ ¼ 1:5) using the original scheme of Andrae 2011 and the combined model
Schemes A through G (n-heptane was chosen for species delay detection). Schemes A through G (n-heptane was chosen for species delay detection).
Table 4
In conclusion, Figs. 3–8 and Table 4 show that auto-ignition
Standard deviation of Schemes A to G auto-ignition delay results compared to those of
delay of both diesel and biodiesel surrogates are very sensitive to the original schemes of Andrae and Zhaoyu Luo.
the common reactions. In particular scheme C, where package I is
Scheme A B C D E F G
taken from Zhaoyu Luo et al. scheme and packages II to V from
Andrae scheme), is the one that gives reasonable results using both Andrae 0.12 0.13 0.11 0.33 0.15 0.15 0.10
Zhaoyu Luo 0.22 0.21 0.13 0.30 0.19 0.22 0.15
fuels separately, justifying the analysis of the common reactions,
instead of taking them directly from the original schemes (as done
in schemes A and B). Note that the elementary reactions of package
I contain species H2 ; OH; HO2 ; H2 O2 .
As one can see, auto-ignition results of the developed combined sel (see Table 4). This is quite convenient knowing that in a blend,
schemes are generally much better for diesel compared to biodie- diesel is usually the major component.
D. Alviso et al. / Fuel 191 (2017) 411–426 417
Fig. 6. Biodiesel/air auto-ignition delay as a function of pressure and temperature Fig. 7. Biodiesel/air auto-ignition delay as a function of pressure and temperature
(/ ¼ 0:5) using the original scheme of Zhaoyu Luo et al. 2012 and the combined (/ ¼ 1:0) using the original scheme of Zhaoyu Luo et al. 2012 and the combined
model Schemes A through G (methyl decanoate was chosen for species delay model Schemes A through G (methyl decanoate was chosen for species delay
detection). detection).
5.1.2. Diesel-biodiesel blends ignition delays One can see that for all three equivalence ratios and pressures
We have performed simulations using the combined scheme C the influence of adding biodiesel is not negligible. In fact, B20 igni-
for a blend corresponding to B20 (20% in volume biodiesel, 80% tion delays curve is located, in average, at 20% from that of B0, and
diesel). B20 is the most common blend used around the world. 80% from that of B100.
Agarwal and Das [42] found out that B20 is the optimum biodiesel
blend giving maximum increase in thermal efficiency, lowest 5.1.3. Diesel-biodiesel-ethanol blends ignition delays
brake-specific energy consumption (BSEC) and advantage in terms Fig. 10 presents a comparison between numerical diesel-
of lower emissions. We have plotted auto ignition delays as a func- biodiesel-ethanol blends ignition delays using scheme C as a func-
tion of equivalence ratio, pressure and temperature in Fig. 9 for B0 tion of equivalence ratio, pressure and temperature. The blends
(pure diesel), B20 and B100 (pure biodiesel). correspond to BDE10 (10% biodiesel, 10% ethanol, 80% diesel) and
418 D. Alviso et al. / Fuel 191 (2017) 411–426
Fig. 8. Biodiesel/air auto-ignition delay as a function of pressure and temperature Fig. 9. Diesel/biodiesel-air B20 blend auto-ignition delay as a function of equiva-
(/ ¼ 1:5) using the original scheme of Zhaoyu Luo et al. 2012 and the combined lence ratio, pressure and temperature using the combined model C (n-heptane was
model Schemes A through G (methyl decanoate was chosen for species delay chosen for species delay detection).
detection).
Zhaoyu Luo, respectively, see Table 3) to simulate 1-D freely-
BDE20 (10% biodiesel, 20% ethanol, 70% diesel) and B10 (10% propagating pure diesel/air premixed flames using 1D-PREMIXED
biodiesel, 90% diesel) (taken as a reference). In this figure, one code within the REGATH package.
can see that adding ethanol does not change significantly the igni- Pure diesel/air flame speeds estimated as a function of equiva-
tion delays, at least up to 20%. lence ratio are presented in Fig. 11. This figure shows that the com-
bined scheme A reproduces fairly well the flame speed obtained by
5.2. Laminar flame speed simulations the original scheme of Andrae [32] for rich flames. The scheme B
seems to be slightly better than scheme A for lean flames, although
5.2.1. Comparison of combined chemical schemes to the original the difference is very small.
schemes We have next used the kinetic scheme proposed by Luo et al.
We have first used the kinetic scheme proposed by Andrae [32] [13] and schemes A and B to simulate 1-D freely-propagating pure
and schemes A and B (all common reactions from Andrae and biodiesel/air premixed flames. Pure biodiesel/air flame speed
D. Alviso et al. / Fuel 191 (2017) 411–426 419
Fig. 11. Diesel/air flame speed as a function of equivalence ratio, for T = 300 K and
p = 1 atm, using the original scheme of Andrae 2011 and the combined schemes A
and B.
Fig. 12. Biodiesel/air flame speed as a function of equivalence ratio, for T = 300 K
and p = 1 atm, using the original scheme of Zhaoyu Luo et al. 2012 and the
combined schemes A and B.
Fig. 14. Biodiesel/air flame speeds as a function of equivalence ratio, for T = 300 K
and p = 1 atm, using the original scheme of Zhaoyu Luo et al. 2012 and the
combined schemes C through G.
6. Conclusions
Table 6
Package I (species H2 ; OH; HO2 ; H2 O2 ). Reaction rate coefficients given in the form k ¼ AT n expðE=RTÞ. Units are mol cm cal s.
Table 7
Package II (species HCO; CH2 O; CH3 O; CH3 OH). Reaction rate coefficients given in the form k ¼ AT n expðE=RTÞ. Units are mol cm cal s.
Table 7 (continued)
Table 8
Package III (species CH; CH2 ; CH3 ; CH4 ). Reaction rate coefficients given in the form k ¼ AT n expðE=RTÞ. Units are mol cm cal s.
Table 9
Package IV (species C 2 H6 ; C 2 H5 ; C 2 H4 ; C 2 H3 ; C 2 H2 ; C 2 H5 CHO). Reaction rate coefficients given in the form k ¼ AT n expðE=RTÞ. Units are mol cm cal s.
Table 10
n
Package V (species C 7 H16 ; C 7 H152 ; CH2 CO; HCCO). Reaction rate coefficients given in the form k ¼ AT expðE=RTÞ. Units are mol cm cal s.
Table 10 (continued)
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