Experimental studies of autoignition and soot formation of diesel surrogate fuels

Computational simulation has undergone vast development for internal-combustion engine research as a time- and cost-saving tool. Yet combustion simulation for conventional hydrocarbon petroleum fuels faces difficult challenges since such fuels have very complex compositions, consisting of many different molecular species, for which data are sparse. The use of surrogate fuels for combustion simulation could provide a solution to this problem. In this investigation, n-heptane and mixtures of n-heptane and toluene were studied within a broad range of potential surrogate diesel fuels, and the ignition delay and soot formation trends were compared with those of diesel fuel. Ignition delays show good agreement with those for diesel fuel and it was also possible to replicate partially the soot formation behaviour for certain engine conditions. Further investigation is needed to find a surrogate fuel that closely matches over the range of operating conditions of a diesel engine.