Numerical simulation of stoichiometric premixed flames burning CH3Cl / CH4 / air mixtures at atmospheric pressure with a full and short reaction mechanism and comparison of the flame speeds with experimental results

Numerical simulations of freely moving premixed flames burning mixtures of methane and methyl chloride in air are conducted at atmospheric pressure in order to understand the effect of hydrocarbon bound chlorine on hydrocarbon-air flames. A chemical kinetic mechanism is employed, the adopted scheme involving 38 gas-phase species and 358 elementary reaction steps due to 179 forward reactions. A simplification procedure is followed in order to reduce the reaction set to a smaller one, in order to make the simulations less time intensive. A 63-reaction set containing 25 species is determined after the application of detailed sensitivity analyses, and found to accurately predict the salient features of the simulated flames. The flame speeds predicted by both the full and short mechanism are found to be in good agreement with those deduced from experiments on symmetrical stretched planar counterflow premixed flames. Further study is required if the short mechanism is to be extended to other systems involving XCl compounds, such as HCl.