Experimental study of soot formation from a diesel fuel surrogate in a shock tube

The soot tendency (soot induction delay time and soot yield) of a diesel fuel surrogate and of the hydrocarbons that constitute this mixture was studied in a heated shock tube. The surrogate is composed of three hydrocarbons representative of major chemical families of diesel fuels (39% n-propylcyclohexane, 28% n-butylbenzene, and 33% 2,2,4,4,6,8,8-heptamethylnonane in mass proportion). Experiments were carried out for highly diluted mixtures in argon; in the case of pyrolysis and at two equivalence ratios: 18 and 5. The pressure range was relatively high (1090–1870 kPa) and the carbon atom concentration was kept constant at around 2 × 10+18 atoms cm−3. The effects of the nature of the hydrocarbon, the oxygen addition, and the temperature on the soot induction delay time and soot yield were investigated. A second growth stage of the soot volume fraction was observed. The influence of several parameters on the existence and/or on the amplitude of this second growth seems to indicate the chemical nature of this phenomenon. Results for the soot tendency show that the soot induction delay time and soot yield depend strongly on the structure of the hydrocarbon and on the concentration of oxygen. The study of the diesel surrogate shows that the soot inception process does not depend on synergistic effects between hydrocarbons but seems to be initiated by the constituent of the surrogate that produces soot fastest, while other constituents were consumed later during the soot growth.