Improved efficiency and reduced emissions are essential elements of more sustainable propulsion systems. In addition to providing energy, the fuel in propulsion systems can be also used as coolant for critical engine components. Both the choice of fuel and understanding the fuel pyrolysis and oxidation behavior is critical for design of future propulsion systems. Specifically, well validated chemical kinetic models are needed in designing such systems. A fundamental approach in developing

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... ed chemical kinetic models is to start with the simplest fuel molecule and progressively increase the complexity of the molecular structure. Unfortunately, real fuels, and jet fuels in particular, consist of hundreds of hydrocarbon species and therefore the development of appropriate chemical kinetic models is challenging. As part of development of chemical kinetic models for these complex fuels, several surrogate models have been identified in order to simplify the modelling effort. Despite the fact that the surrogate reaction models represent a major simplification, they are still too large and require further simplification before implementation in computational simulation of propulsion systems. The present research work aims at solving this problem by decoupling the fuel pyrolysis and oxidation processes. The idea of semi-global model with a fast-thermal pyrolysis of large fuel molecules, in combination with more detailed H2/C1-C4 base model, is considered. The work described here is mainly focused on the experimental aspects of fuel decomposition into H2 and C1-C4 species. For this purpose, a novel micro flow tube reactor (MFTR) with a small mixing volume was designed and developed. Extensive investigations were performed to better understand the uncertainties associated with