An ignition delay and kinetic modeling study of methane, dimethyl ether, and their mixtures at high pressures

The development of accurate chemical kinetic models capable of predicting the combustion of methane and dimethyl ether in common combustion environments such as compression ignition engines and gas turbines is important as it provides valuable data and understanding of these fuels under conditions that are difficult and expensive to study in the real combustors. In this work, both experimental and chemical kinetic model-predicted ignition delay time data are provided covering a range of conditions relevant to gas turbine environments (T = 600–1600 K, p = 7–41 atm, ϕ = 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 in ‘air’ mixtures). The detailed chemical kinetic model (Mech_56.54) is capable of accurately predicting this wide range of data, and it is the first mechanism to incorporate high-level rate constant measurements and calculations where available for the reactions of DME. This mechanism is also the first to apply a pressure-dependent treatment to the low-temperature reactions of DME. It has been validated using available literature data including flow reactor, jet-stirred reactor, shock-tube ignition delay times, shock-tube speciation, flame speed, and flame speciation data. New ignition delay time measurements are presented for methane, dimethyl ether, and their mixtures; these data were obtained using three different shock tubes and a rapid compression machine. In addition to the DME/CH4 blends, high-pressure data for pure DME and pure methane were also obtained. Where possible, the new data were compared with existing data from the literature, with good agreement.