Fuels Combustion Research.

Interest in chemically related combustion problems has led to an integrated fuels, research program with emphasis on the pyrolysis and oxidation of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, soot formationdestruction and carbon oxidation. This document presents detailed results on the pyrolysis of ethene and propane, and reviews and analyzes aromatic oxidation mechanisms. Data on the high temperature oxidation of toluene were obtained on the Princeton flow reactor, and the oxidative rate characteristics were observed to differ markedly from the aliphatics. Experiments dealing with the formation and destruction of soot were undertaken from both fundamental and overall approaches. Experiments aimed at exploring the importance of OH radicals introduced by water addition were begun. Experiments were conducted to measure sooting height as an indication of sooting tendency. Soot height characteristics of several fuels and fuel mixtures were made, including mixtures of toluene and heptane. A second approach--involving premixing of fuel and soot inhibitors in a diffusion flame burner--has been considered, and initial experiments are currently underway.