Study of thermophysical parameters of new-generation “green” hydrocarbon fuel for reusable aerospace systems

Development of concepts for multi-entry space vehicles put strict requirements for reliability of operating power plants and the flight vehicle as a whole. An important problem is achieving trouble-free performance of vehicle power plant operating under high thermal loads. This type of power plants consumes the hydrocarbon fuel with a high resistance to surface deposition of incomplete oxidation products. The progress in production technologies for synthetic fuel from bio resource enables accessibility with reduced or zero carbon footprint. Synthetic fuel or its components are different from a hydrocarbon fuel by their composition, as well as by the fuel properties. The use of fuels with synthetic components requires a study on physical-chemical properties and thermophysical characteristics. This paper presents experimental study on thermal stability, limiting cooling capacity and ignition parameters for a high-density hydrocarbon fuel (HDHF) from new-generation products. It was shown that the HDHF can be used at temperatures up to 300 °C without any deposits of with admissible low levels. Experiments were conducted in a shock tube for the fuel ignition delay in the operating range of pressure 14–16 bar, temperature 1000–1500 K and oxidizer excess ratio 0.5–3.