LAUSR

Abstract Fuel flash point is important for safe fuel handling. The presence of smaller, low flash point hydrocarbons (8 carbons atoms) found in fuel lowers its flashpoint. This work involved measuring the flash points of mixtures containing small hydrocarbons from different classes of chemicals (linear, cyclic, and iso-alkanes, and aromatic compounds) mixed with either JP-5 or n-dodecane as a fuel surrogate. Flash points varied by chemical class and by specific isomer within the class. The flash points of n-dodecane mixtures containing compounds whose flash points were measured (linear and cyclic alkanes and aromatics) were successfully modeled using Liaw’s model. Applying this model to mixtures for which the pure compounds flash points were not measured allowed for the selection of a flash point for each compound from the varied reported values. A set of pure component flash points was used with blending index models to determine the model coefficients for dodecane mixtures and JP-5 mixtures. The coefficients based on the dodecane mixtures predicted the JP-5 mixtures fairly well with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.2 K and a mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.2 K. The coefficients based on the JP-5 mixtures gave a slight improvement in prediction with an RMSE of 1 K and an MAE of 1 K. This work emphasized the sensitivity of fuel flash point to specific isomers and shows that dodecane is a good model compound for the JP-5 in this system.