Instructions and Documentation for Adiabatic
Flame Temperature Calculation
Table of Contents
1. Independent Variables (Inputs)
2. Dependent Variables (Outputs)
3. Assumptions
4. Peer-Reviewed Literature for Values and Methodology
5. Why These Assumptions?
6. Best Practices and Further Reading
Attached Excel Sheet
Literature PDFs (Freely Available)
1. Independent Variables (Inputs)
Combustor inlet pressure (P3)
Combustor inlet temperature (T3)
Air mass flow into combustor (W3)
Fuel mass flow rate (Wf)
Combustor exit pressure (P4)
Measured combustor exit temp for validation (T4)
Exit mass flow (air + fuel, W4)
Lower heating value of fuel (LHV)
Heat capacity of air (cp_air)
Heat capacity of combustion products (cp_prod)
2. Dependent Variables (Outputs)
Adiabatic Flame Temperature (calculated iteratively)
Equivalence Ratio
3. Assumptions
Complete combustion with no dissociation
Constant cp for air and products
Negligible heat loss to surroundings
Fuel is Jet-A surrogate (C12H23) with a given LHV
Air-fuel mixing is ideal and uses stoichiometric calculations
4. Peer-Reviewed Literature for Values and Methodology
Turns, S. R. (2012) "An Introduction to Combustion: Concepts and Applications", 3rd Edition,
McGraw-Hill. (Chapter 2: Adiabatic Flame Temperatures)
Bowman, C. T., et al., "Kinetics of Pollutant Formation and Destruction in Combustion", Progress
in Energy and Combustion Science, 1997.
See also: Karvountzis-Kontakiotis, A., et al., "Study on Pollutants Formation under Knocking
Combustion" (Nottingham Repository)
Shanthini, R. "Combustion Fundamentals" (IITM)
5. Why These Assumptions?
Constant cp provides reasonably accurate flame temperature estimates for engineering design
and is standard in introductory combustion texts (Turns, 2012).
Neglecting dissociation is acceptable for preliminary calculations below ~2000K and for fuels such
as Jet-A when high precision is not needed (Turns, Table 2.1–2.5).
The references above have validated these assumptions for initial gas turbine combustor
calculations and demonstrate their use in standard academic coursework and industrial pre-
design.
6. Best Practices and Further Reading
For more sophisticated modeling (including dissociation), use CHEMKIN/Cantera or NASA CEA
software as described in Turns (2012), Section 2.6.
See Table 2.4 in "Combustion Fundamentals" for normalized fuel/air ratios for different fuels.
Review Chapter 2 of Turns (2012) for a step-by-step adiabatic flame temperature calculation and
further details on the thermodynamic property assumptions used here.
Attached Excel Sheet
This package includes an editable Excel sheet with:
Clearly labeled Input Variables tab (user can change data)
Iterative solver table for flame temperature (user can update guesses and results)
Documentation sheet with above theory, assumptions, and literature references
Literature PDFs (Freely Available)
An Introduction to Combustion: Concepts and Applications by S. R. Turns – Chapter 2
Combustion Fundamentals, Module 1, by R. Shanthini, IIT Madras
Study on Pollutants Formation under Knocking Combustion
