Multi-species measurements behind reflected shock waves in hydrocarbons using laser absorption

There is a critical need for accurate kinetic targets to test and refine large reaction mechanisms for jet fuel, and other practical fuels and surrogates mixtures. To this end, concentration time-histories for four species: C ₂H₄, OH CO₂, and H₂O, were measured behind reflected shock waves during n-the oxidation of n-heptane, an important normal alkane fuel surrogate component. Experiments were conducted at temperatures of 1300 to 1600 K and a pressure of 2 atm using a mixture of 300 ppm n-heptane in stoichiometric oxygen (φ=1) in argon. Ethylene was monitored using IR gas laser absorption at 10.53 microns; OH was monitored using UV laser absorption at 306.5 nm; and CO₂ and H₂O were monitored using tunable IR diode laser absorption at 2.7 and 2.5 microns, respectively. These time-histories provide kinetic targets to test and refine reaction mechanisms for n-heptane and also serve to demonstrate the potential of this type of data for validation of reaction mechanisms. Comparisons are made with the predictions of the Sirjean et al./JetSurF 1.0 (2009) reaction mechanism for n-alkanes.