Detonation sensitivity of liquid fuels

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Large quantities of combustible liquids and gases are routinely transported by truck and rail car. This project is part of a study to assess the potential hazards associated with the transport of large quantities of combustible liquids and pressure liquefied gases. Of particular interest is the detonability of the material when mixed with air. A detonation is a supersonic reaction wave that produces an overpressure ratio on the order of twenty for typical hydrocarbon-air mixtures. Little or nothing is known about the detonability of numerous industrial liquids routinely transported in bulk. This will be addressed by assessing the detonability of a number of liquids through the measurement of the detonation cell size. The cell size represents the characteristic length scale of a detonation wave and has been shown to represent the sensitivity of a combustible mixture to detonate. The cell size is measured via a well established soot foil technique. Although detonation waves can propagate through a heterogeneous mixture consisting of liquid fuel droplets in air, the cell size is generally very large and cannot be measured in a laboratory setting. This study is restricted to detonation waves in homogeneous mixtures of fuel vapour and air at atmospheric pressure. Testing will be performed at 100 deg C and the lowest possible temperature where a fuel vapour air mixture can be formed, typically between 25 deg C and 30 deg C.