Abstract: | A reduced chemical mechanism was developed for the chemical kinetics of n‐heptane oxidation in modeling polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon formation in diesel combustion. The complete kinetic mechanism, which comprises five hundred and seventy‐two reactions and one hundred and eight species, was reduced to a minor mechanism that includes only seventy‐six reactions and forty‐eight species by using net reaction rate analysis and sensitivity analysis, yet the model based on this reduced mechanism predicted the temperature profile and concentrations of C7H16, O2, H2O, CO2, benzene, naphthalene, phenanthrene, biphenyl, and pyrene that are essentially indistinguishable from those of the complete mechanism under the range of reaction conditions of interest. |