Reduction of chemical mechanism and kinetics analysis for ignition of RP-3 aviation kerosene in partially catalyzed hydrogen peroxide

•A reduced kinetic mechanism for hydrogen peroxide/kerosene is developed.•A five-step simplification strategy for large-size mechanisms is proposed.•The kinetic insight in partial catalytic autoignition is analyzed.•Special ignition properties differing from air/hydrocarbon are demonstrated. Partial catalytic autoignition schemes for hydrogen peroxide (HP)/kerosene engines have demonstrated considerable potential advantages; however, the kinetic process for the autoignition of kerosene in partially catalyzed HP has rarely been reported. Therefore, in this study, simplified from a detailed chemical mechanism of three-component RP-3 surrogate fuels, a reduced mechanism model with 50 species and 216 reactions was developed for HP/kerosene partial catalytic ignition by integrating a five-step reduction strategy. A new method for decoupling sensitivity analysis with flame speed error control is proposed to avoid inaccuracies in laminar flame velocity prediction caused by the oversimplification of traditional sensitivity analysis methods. The reduced mechanism was extensively validated in terms of autoignition, flame propagation, combustion, extinction, and CFD applicability. The reaction pathways and brute-force sensitivity were analyzed to understand the kinetics and identify the dominant reactions for the ignition of kerosene in partially catalyzed HP. This paper introduces a reduced mechanism suitable for advancing CFD simulation studies and provides an understanding of the ignition kinetics of partial catalytic ignition in the HP/kerosene regime.