Abstract: | A model of the physico-chemical kinetics of the reactions taking place behind the front of an intense shock wave propagating in air with a speed of 9–14 km/s is proposed. The problem of describing the chemical reactions, namely, molecular dissociation and exchange reactions involving vibrationally excited molecules in the absence of vibrational equilibrium, is solved. The vital role of the vibrational excitation delay in the dissociation of oxygen and nitrogen is established. The rate of the exchange reaction between nitrogen molecules and oxygen atoms in the shock wave depends only slightly on the vibrational excitation level. It is demonstrated that the rate constants for thermally nonequilibrium dissociation reactions can be represented within the framework of the one-temperature approximation at constant vibrational temperatures of the dissociating species satisfying quasi-stationary conditions.Moscow. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 2, pp. 169–182, March–April, 1995. |