A Detailed, Finite-Rate, Chemical Kinetics Mechanism for Monomethylhydrazine-Red Fuming Nitric Acid Systems

Abstract : Between 2003 and 2005, a detailed, multistep, finite-rate chemical kinetics mechanism was developed to provide a basis for modeling monomethylhydrazine-red fuming nitric acid (MMH-RFNA) ignition and combustion chemistry. It was assembled almost entirely from reaction rate expressions and thermochemical data developed and validated for other combustion systems. When the mechanism's development was discontinued in 2005, it was composed of rate expressions for 513 reactions and involved 81 species. A lack of relevant experimental data limited the extent to which it could be validated as a whole. Nevertheless, when a subset of the mechanism was employed as a submodel for a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of an impinging stream vortex engine (ISVE) fueled with MMH-RFNA, the CFD model produced simulations whose calculations for chamber pressure and thrust well-reproduced ISVE test firing data. As such, the mechanism is considered to have a reasonable measure of validity and, thus, to be a good starting point for obtaining more refined MMH-RFNA mechanisms. This report discusses the mechanism's development and provides the rate expressions and thermochemical data that compose it. The sources of the rate expressions and thermochemical data are also provided.