Comparison of Chemical Kinetic Rate Mechanisms for High-Temperature Air, Including Electronic Energy

A comparative treatment is presented for the behavior of several chemical kinetic models in high-temperature air, which are often invoked in high-temperature flowfield analyses; also noted is the effect of a simultaneous assumption of a finite equilibrium electronic energy. The inviscid, nonequilibrium chemically reacting flowfield downstream of a normal shock wave in air is used, and calculations are performed with and without the inclusion of equilibrium electronic energy as part of the mixture enthalpy. Rates of chemical relaxation are found to vary widely among the models, but the addition of electronic energy produced only minor flowstream changes. (AIAA)