Nonequilibrium kinetics of a radiative CO flow behind a shock wave.

An investigation is presented of a highly nonequilibrium CO flow with consistently coupled vibrational energy exchanges, chemical reactions, and radiation. A detailed state-to-state model taking into account vibration-vibration, vibration-translation, and vibration-electronic transitions, dissociation-recombination reactions, and radiative transitions between vibrational and electronic states is developed on the basis of kinetic theory methods. A closed set of master equations for vibration-electronic level populations, number densities of atomic species, radiation intensity, temperature, and velocity is derived, and a one-dimensional inviscid carbon monoxide flow behind a plane shock wave is studied numerically. Several models of vibrational transition and dissociation rates in high temperature carbon monoxide are tested, and a model satisfying both accuracy and feasibility requirements is recommended. The role of various energy transfers and chemical reactions in the formation of nonequilibrium vibrational distributions in a shock heated CO flow is studied, and the influence of state-to-state distributions on macroscopic flow parameters and radiation intensity is discussed.