Ethylene ignition and detonation chemistry, Part 1: Detailed modeling and experimental comparison

A numerical investigation is reported on the chemical kinetics of C2H4 ignition and detonation in oxygen-diluent mixtures. Conditions addressed cover initial (postshock) temperatures between 1000 and 2500 K, pressures between 0.5 and 100 bar and equivalence ratios between 0.5 and 2. Attention is paid to histories of species concentrations and temperature, to autoignition times, and to subsequent heat release that is relevant to detonation structure. A detailed mechanism is proposed consisting of 148 reversible elementary reactions among 34 chemical species. This mechanism is shown to provide good agreement with most ignition times measured in shock tubes and with burning-velocity measurements available in the literature. The results provide a basis for developing simplified descriptions that can be used in multidimensional detonation studies for applications to propulsion devices.