On the Kinetic Mechanism of Ignition of Diborane Mixtures with Air

A reaction model is proposed for calculating the process of ignition of diborane mixtures with air. The model summarizes the previously developed kinetic models of oxidation of diborane, boron, as well as lower oxides and hydroxides of boron. A distinctive feature of the model is the use of physically grounded rate constants of the most important reaction channels, which were either computed or derived from available experimental data. The mechanism is tested against experimental data on the diborane ignition delay and flame velocity in diborane–oxygen and diborane–air mixtures. The results predicted by the proposed model are found to be in reasonable agreement with experimental data. The model can be used for engineering calculations and also for numerical simulations of diborane combustion in lean and stoichiometric mixtures with air.