Shock-Tube-Validated, Versatile Kinetic Mechanism Reduction Framework for Mixed Hydrocarbon-Based Rocket Fuels

Accurate characterization of liquid rocket engines requires chemical modeling capable of predicting key quantities such as heat release rate, pressure rise, and pollutant formation. Compared to detailed kinetic mechanisms, reduced mechanisms offer computational tractability but typically compromise accuracy to enable use across a broad range of thermochemical regimes. Most applications, however, only traverse a small thermochemical subspace and would be best served by a problem-dependent reduced mechanism. Hence, ATA Engineering, Inc., (ATA) proposes to develop a software framework to enable automatic, on-demand creation of reduced kinetic mechanisms, optimized to problem-defined thermochemical states using flexible criteria. This framework will incorporate uncertainty propagation from an experimental database and perform automated reduction, optimizing based on automated low-order reactor simulations within the desired thermochemical state space. To facilitate the development of high-quality reduced mechanisms for kerosene-based rocket fuels, ATA and its partners at Texas A&M University (TAMU) will develop a comprehensive shock tube ignition delay measurement campaign, to be executed in Phase II, to reduce experimental uncertainty in critical, untested thermochemical domains for mixed-hydrocarbon rocket fuels. This campaign will leverage TAMU’s state-of-the art experimental facilities and ATA’s experience predicting and correcting non-ideal ignition in shock tubes.