Nonequilibrium Vibrational Kinetics of an O2/O Mixture Hitting a Catalytic Surface

The importance of a silica surface in affecting both the state-to-state kinetics and the macroscopic properties of an O2/O mixture hitting a blunt body at hypersonic speed has been investigated. First, the surface has been considered catalytic only for recombination: three different assumptions are examined and compared with the results from a noncatalytic surface model. Second, both deactivation and dissociation are treated in the framework of a catalytic surface.