As regulatory measures for improved fuel economy and decreased emissions are pushing gasoline engine combustion technologies towards extreme conditions (i.e., boosted and intercooled intake with exhaust gas recirculation), fuel ignition characteristics become increasingly important for enabling stable operation. This study explores the effects of chemical composition on the fundamental ignition behavior of gasoline fuels. Two well-characterized, high-octane, non-oxygenated FACE (Fuels for Advanced Combustion Engines) gasolines, FACE F and FACE G, having similar antiknock indices but different octane sensitivities and chemical compositions are studied. Ignition experiments were conducted in shock tubes and a rapid compression machine (RCM) at nominal pressures of 20 and 40 atm, equivalence ratios of 0.5 and 1.0, and temperatures ranging from 650 to 1270 K. Results at temperatures above 900 K indicate that ignition delay time is similar for these fuels. However, RCM measurements below 900 K demonstrate a stronger negative temperature coefficient behavior for the FACE F gasoline having lower octane sensitivity. In addition, RCM pressure profiles under two-stage ignition conditions illustrate that the magnitude of low-temperature heat release (LTHR) increases with decreasing fuel octane sensitivity. However, intermediate-temperature heat release is shown to increase as fuel octane sensitivity increases. Various surrogate fuel mixtures were formulated to conduct chemical kinetic modeling, and complex KAUST multicomponent surrogate mixtures were shown to reproduce experimentally observed trends better than simpler two-and three-component mixtures composed of n-heptane, iso-octane, and toluene. Measurements in a Cooperative Fuels Research (CFR) engine demonstrated that the KAUST multicomponent surrogates accurately captured the antiknock quality of the FACE gasolines. Simulations were performed using multicomponent surrogates for FACE F and G to reveal the underlying chemical kinetics linking fuel composition with ignition characteristics. A key discovery of this work is the kinetic coupling between aromatics and naphthenes, which affects the radical pool population and thereby controls ignition.

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OCT is a promising tool in the measurements of TFT and dimensional variables of tear menisci. Upper and lower tear menisci have nearly identical dimensions.

Many practical soot-emitting combustion systems such as diesel and jet engines rely on diffusion flames for efficient and reliable operation. Efforts to mitigate soot emissions from these systems are dependent on fundamental understanding of the physicochemical pathways leading from fuel to soot in laminar diffusion flames. Existing diffusion flame−based soot studies focused primarily on overventilated coflow flame where the fuel gas (or vapor) issues from a cylindrical tube into a co-flowing oxidizer, and counterflow flame, where a reacting zone is established between two opposing streams of fuel and oxidizer. As a canonical diffusion flame configuration, laminar counterflow diffusion flames have been widely used as a highly controllable environment for soot research, enabling significant progress in the understanding of soot formation for several decades. In view of the possibility of fuel/oxidizer premixing in practical systems, counterflow partially premixed flames have also been studied. In the present work we intend to provide a comprehensive review of the researches on various aspects of soot formation utilizing counterflow flames. Major processes of soot formation (formation of gas phase soot precursors, soot inception and surface reactions, as well as particle-particle interactions) are examined first, with focus on the most recent (post-2010) research progress. Experimental techniques and associated challenges for the measurement of soot-related properties (some knowledge of which is helpful for full appreciation of the experimental data to be reviewed) are then introduced. This is followed by a detailed description of soot evolution in counterflow flames, which is complemented by a discussion on the similarity and differences of the sooting structures between counterflow and coflow diffusion flames. Parametric studies of the effects of fuel molecular structure, fuel additive, partial-premixing, pressure, temperature, stoichiometric mixture fraction, and residence time on soot formation in counterflow flames will then be addressed in detail. This review concludes with a summary of the knowledge and challenges gathered and demonstrated through decades of research, and an outlook on opportunities for future counterflow flame−based soot research towards a more complete understanding of soot formation and the development of novel techniques for soot mitigation in practical combustion devices.

The custom-built OCT showed good repeatability and holds promise in measuring the dynamic distribution of artificial tears on the ocular surface.

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