Auto-ignition and Anti-Knock Evaluation of Dicyclopentadiene-PRF and TPRF Blends

The increasing demand for high-octane fuels is pushing the combustion research towards investigating new potential fuels and octane boosters. In addition to their high-octane, those additives should be environmentally friendly. In this study, the anti-knock properties of Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) as an additive to primary reference fuels (PRF) and toluene primary reference fuels (TPRF) have been investigated. The Research octane number (RON) and Motor octane number (MON) were measured using Cooperative Fuels Research (CFR) engine for four different fuel blends; PRF 60 + 10% DCPD, PRF 60 + 20% DCPD, PRF 70 + 10% DCPD and TPRF 70 + 10% DCPD. In addition, homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI) was also performed using the CFR engine to show the effect of DCPD on suppressing low temperature chemistry of reference fuels. Moreover, the ignition delay times of these mixtures were measured in the rapid compression machine (RCM) at 20 bar and stoichiometric mixtures over a temperature range [700-1000 K]. Also, ignition quality tester (IQT) was used to determine the effect of DCPD addition to iso-octane. Generally, DCPD showed superior anti-knock quality, which is attributed to its combustion chemistry.