Joshua Steven Heyne

University of Dayton | UD · Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

This research explores an advanced method of fuel composition determination and builds upon typical hydrocarbon group type analyses performed with two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC). In this study, structural information of individual species within Virent’s Synthetic Aromatic Kerosene (SAK) is identified by vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) spectro...

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) must demonstrate specific physical and chemical properties as well as material compatibility (i.e., seal swell) to be used as aviation turbine fuels. Several alternative jet fuels incorporated in ASTM D7566 are comprised mainly of n/iso-alkanes and can only be blended up to 50 vol% due to material compatibility and...

Fusel alcohol mixtures containing ethanol, isobutanol, isopentanol, and 2-phenylethanol have been shown to be a promising means to maximize renewable fuel yield from various biomass feedstocks and waste streams. We hypothesized that use of these fusel alcohol mixtures as a blending agent with gasoline can significantly lower the greenhouse gas emis...

A detailed assessment is presented on the calculation and uncertainty of the lower heating value (net heat of combustion) of conventional and sustainable aviation fuels, from hydrocarbon class concentration measurements, reference molecular heats of formation, and the uncertainties of these reference heats of formation. Calculations using this pape...

Typically, real jet fuels are composed primarily of normal-, iso-, and cycloalkanes, along with significant fractions of alkyl aromatics. This study elucidates fundamentally the influence of the cycloalkane functionality on the fully prevaporized global combustion kinetic behavior of a fuel mixture composed of normal- and isoparaffin and alkyl arom...

Ignition characteristics in the form of derived cetane numbers (DCN) of (hydro) furanic species are investigated experimentally in an Ignition Quality Tester. Further, quantum chemistry calculations at CBS-QB3 level of theory are applied to determine bond dissociation energies (BDEs) and thereby suggest the initial reactions of the ignition process...

We have demonstrated previously that a (surrogate fuel) mixture of known pure hydrocarbon species that closely matches four combustion property targets (the derived cetane number (DCN), the hydrogen to carbon molar ratio (H/C), the threshold soot index (TSI), and the average molecular weight) of a specific jet fuel, displays fully prevaporized glob...

Fundamentally, the dehydration reaction of tertiary-butanol is frequently used as an internal standard for relative rate studies of other decomposition reactions. We report here a study using radical trappers to isolate this path in tertiary-butanol pyrolysis experiments conducted in the Princeton Variable Pressure Flow Reactor. A novel technique t...

A general method to evaluate the absolute uncertainties in temperatures derived using chemical thermometry is developed and applied to the retro Diels-Alder reaction of cyclohexene. Experiments from previous studies of this reaction are reanalyzed to establish the minimum absolute uncertainty limit. Chemical thermometry results are compared with th...

A methodology for the formulation of surrogate fuels for the emulation of real fuel gas phase combustion kinetic phenomena pertinent to gas turbine combustion is described and tested. A mixture of n-dodecane/iso-octane/1,3,5-trimethylbenzene/n-propylbenzene is formulated in a predictive manner to exhibit the same gas phase combustion phenomena of a...

The combustion chemistry of tertiary-butanol is studied experimentally in a high pressure flow reactor and in counterflow diffusion flames. Princeton Variable Pressure Flow Reactor results show that t-butanol does not exhibit low temperature chemistry, and thus has no negative temperature coefficient behavior under the studied conditions. The onset...

The combustion chemistry of tertiary-butanol was studied experimentally in a Variable Pressure Flow Reactor and in counterflow diffusion flames. It was found that t-butanol does not exhibit low temperature chemistry, and thus has no negative temperature coefficient behavior. The onset of gas phase chemistry at high pressure occurs at ∼780 K. In the...

An implicit methodology based on chemical group theory to formulate a jet aviation fuel surrogate by the measurements of several combustion related fuel properties is tested. The empirical formula and derived cetane number of an actual aviation fuel, POSF 4658, have been determined. A three component surrogate fuel for POSF 4658 has been formulated...

A coal-based thermally stable fuel, referred to as JP-900, was investigated as a potential single battlefield fuel (SBF or “unifuel”). Any proposed SBF or unifuel will have to meet all previous jet fuel specifications with the additional requirement of having an acceptable cetane number. The JP-900 (X1390) jet fuel cut was blended with biodiesel, N...