Introducing ChemKED: a new human- and machine-readable data standard for chemical kinetics experiments

Fundamental experimental measurements of quantities including ignition delay times, laminar flame speeds, and species profiles serve important roles in understanding fuel chemistry and validating chemical kinetics models. However, despite both the importance and abundance of such information in the literature, the community lacks a standard format for this data. This impedes both sharing and wide use by the community. In this talk, we will introduce a new Chemical Kinetics Experimental Data format, ChemKED, and the related Python-based package for creating and validating ChemKED-formatted files called PyKED. We will also review past and related efforts, and motivate the need for a new solution. ChemKED currently supports the representation of autoignition delay time measurements from shock tube and rapid compression machine experiments. ChemKED-formatted files contain all of the information needed to simulate experimental data points, including uncertainty. ChemKED is based on the YAML data serialization language, and is intended as a human- and machine-readable standard for easy creation and automated use. Development of ChemKED and PyKED occurs openly on GitHub. The software is released under the BSD 3-clause license, and contributions from the community are welcome. Plans for future development include extending the ChemKED format and PyKED package to support experimental data for laminar flame speed, jet stirred reactor, extinction, and speciation measurements.