1 Breakdown Time Modeled for Hydrocarbon Ignition Using Effective Ionization Coefficients of Air and N-Butane Mixtures

It is demonstrated that numerical simulations of ignition by electric discharge in air and n-butane mixtures have interesting peculiarities which deviate from results obtaining by simple extension of calculations based on methane-like fuels. In particular it is shown that increasing temperature of the mixture before ignition under certain conditions will actually increase the ignition stage time as well as required electric field. Nomenclature b = branching ratio forming OH as described in text Cbr = a constant relating formative discharge time with the effective ionization frequency d = discharge gap E/N = electric field divided by neutral particle density m = the mass of a molecule mi = the mass of an ion kb = the rate constant of O reaction with n-butan