Session: Student Poster Competition

Submission Number: 186998

High-Pressure Speciation and Chemical Kinetic Modeling of Dme-Propane Blends at High Pressure Turbine Conditions 

With increasing energy demands driven by growing populations and rising living standards, the need to reduce emissions has become a global imperative. For most of the past century, gas turbines have provided a substantial portion of the world’s energy. The most used fuel for gas turbines is natural gas, which produces greenhouse gases such as CO₂ and NOₓ. To mitigate the environmental impact of gas turbines, alternative fuels like Dimethyl Ether (DME), a second-generation biofuel with a lower heating value (LHV) of 28.43 MJ/kg, can be blended with propane, a more sustainable hydrocarbon. DME is the simplest ether and lacks any carbon-carbon (C–C) bonds in its chemical structure, which contributes to its reduced soot production. Its low autoignition temperature (508 K) enables operation at lower combustion temperatures, further reducing NOₓ emissions. These fuels were studied at the University of Central Florida's High-Pressure Extended Range Shock Tube for Advanced Research (HiPER-STAR) facility. The shock tube is an excellent tool for generating high-pressure environments via shock waves and has been instrumental in combustion research since the 1940s. By shock-heating DME, pyrolysis studies using direct laser absorption spectroscopy (LAS) to target multiple species were conducted. Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) were used to detect CO at 4.9 µm, and DME at 9 µm. Following DME pyrolysis, blends of DME/O₂, C₃H₈/O₂, and DME/C₃H₈/O₂ will be studied. All mixtures are diluted with argon (AR) to 99.25% and have a carbon content of 1.5% to aid comparison. Species time histories for DME and CO at 60 bar across various blends will enable fine-tuning of reaction rates in state-of-the-art chemical kinetic mechanisms. These refined models can then be reduced and applied to other applications, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for turbine design and optimization.

Presenting Author: Zuhayr Pasha Mohammed University of Central Florida

Presenting Author Biography: I'm a fourth-year PhD student at the University of Central Florida under Dr. Vasu.

Authors:

Zuhayr Pasha Mohammed University of Central Florida
Michael Pierro University of Central Florida
Justin Urso University of Central Florida
Ramees K Rahman University of Central Florida
Subith S. Vasu University of Central Florida