Correlating research octane numbers of gasoline surrogates with high temperature oxidation characteristics

TL;DR

This study uses molecular simulation to link the research octane number of gasoline surrogates with microscopic combustion behaviors, revealing key features that predict fuel antiknock ability.

Contribution

It introduces a molecular simulation approach to correlate RON with microscopic combustion characteristics, enhancing understanding of fuel performance.

Findings

Time of turning point correlates linearly with RON.

Number of hydroxyl radicals at equilibrium negatively correlates with RON.

Both features can predict the antiknock ability of fuels.

Abstract

Due to the rapid combustion nature of gasolines, most of the experimental measurements of research octane number (RON) could only yield macroscopic quantities such as ignition delay time and pressure variations, but fail to yield microscopic quantities such as the time evolution of number of species, which limits deep understanding of combustion mechanisms. In this work, molecular simulation was employed to reveal the correlation between the RON of gasoline surrogates and their combustion behaviors. Results show that the time of turning point obtained from the potential energy profile exhibits a strong linear correlation with RON, whereas the number of hydroxyl radicals per molecule at equilibrium has a clear negative correlation with RON, which makes both of them good features for predicting the antiknock ability of fuels.