Talk:RP-1

message: What is the chemical formula for RP-1 (kerosene)?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.198.251.60 (talk) 21:54, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it is an extensive mix of many different alkanes, as with nearly all petroleum fuels. The difference being mostly a much lower sulfer content (and probably many other undesirable impurities) than cheaper and less rare petroleums. This is touched on in the Fractions and formulation section. 24.79.109.110 (talk) 23:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  chemical formula 

message: My understanding is that one of the main reasons to use RP-1 is because of the significantly lower cost than some other propellants, I believe people reading this article might be interested in a rough cost comparison between RP-1 and other fuels like automotive gasoline and jet fuel. 174.76.23.195 (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we explain cost? 

message: What happens if you fill RP-1 into a diesel car? Judging from what the article currently reveals, my guess is that RP-1 should be well within the specs for diesel fuel and therefore should work without problems. Or maybe there are some important additives for combustion engines missing? It would be nice to get an authoritative answer for that, and I think readers of the article would also find this interesting. --BjKa (talk) 14:56, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  comparison with diesel 

message: Most of this article is copied verbatim from John D. Clarke's "Ignition!"
: doesn't appear to be a copyvio.  DrStrauss talk 08:59, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright infringement 

message: The article briefly mentions "the problem of non-dissociated petroleum residue" (coking) in RP1-fueled engines, but does not really explicate the problem of coking, or how this is causing a large amount of engine research and development to move to other fuels (like the recent large upswing in methalox rocket engines like Raptor and BE-4).  The term "coking", although widely mentioned in rocket engine and jet engine engineering literature, is not even mentioned in the Wikipedia article at all in the present version.
This paper for publication by AIAA—Decomposition Measurements of RP-1, ...—and this extensive set of data that underlie it—DECOMPOSITION KINETICS OF THE ROCKET PROPELLANT RP-1 AND ITS CHEMICAL KINETIC SURROGATES, that came from this 2012 Mechanical Engineering PhD dissertation by Megan E. MacDonald—would help improve the coverage of coking in the article.
High-performance regeneratively cooled engines require fuel that not only performs well as a propellant but also acts as a coolant for the engine. Operating temperatures of the engines in these high-performance vehicles are continually increasing and are reaching the point at which research into the formation of coke (solid carbonaceous deposits) in the cooling channels, which restricts the flow and hinders the heat transfer process, has become critical. Three main mechanisms of coke formation have been described in the literature: oxidative, catalytic, and pyrolytic [1-5]. Here, the focus is on understanding the initial gas-phase kinetic processes that lead to the formation of pyrolytic coke. This coking mechanism is predominant at temperatures above 825 K and occurs when the fuel is heated enough to decompose into reactive fuel radicals, leading to the eventual formation of coke [3]. There is a need to characterize the high-temperature decomposition rates of both rocket fuels and the fuel surrogates used to simulate the kinetic behavior of these fuels.
Good stuff.  Would definitely facilitate improvement of this article on RP-1 if someone wants to parse the abstract and introduction and conclusions, and then write up a section that better explicates coking with RP-1.  Cheers.  N2e (talk) 11:24, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The problem of coking in high-performance engines with RP-1 fuel