Thermal
Cracking of Hydrocarbon Aviation Fuels in
Regenerative Cooling Microchannels
- Publication date
- Publisher
Abstract
Regenerative
cooling with hydrocarbon aviation fuels on board is
taken as a promising technology for the thermal management system
of next-generation aircraft. An improved methodology of an electrically
heated tube (1 mm i.d.), i.e., applying the variable reactor tube
length to carry on thermal cracking of supercritical hydrocarbon aviation
fuels as the electric current heating maintains constant, was proposed
to experimentally obtain detailed information on the local concentration
and temperature along the microchannels of a heat exchanger. For the
first time a series of experimental data on detailed local chemical
compositions of cracked hydrocarbon fuel along the cooling microchannels
were reported under supercritical conditions (5 MPa, 680–700
°C), and the calculated thermodynamic properties, velocity, and
residence times along the tube were also reported. A modified molecular
reaction model consisting of 18 species and 24 reactions was developed
to predict thermal cracking of hydrocarbon aviation fuels in a wide
range of cracking conversion (up to 86%). The work is significant
for the design of regenerative cooling structures in predicting the
local chemical compositions, estimating thermophysical properties,
and coking of the cracked hydrocarbon fuels for heat transfer analysis