Comparative analysis of internal energy excitation and dissociation of nitrogen predicted by independently developedab initiopotential energy surfaces

Abstract

In this article we provide a comparative study of rate laws for internal energy excitation and dissociation of nitrogen. These thermochemical properties are obtained by studying molecular interactions on two independently developed $a\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}b$ $i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}n\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}o$ potential energy surfaces developed at the University of Minnesota and NASA Ames Research Center. Furthermore, a comparison of a canonical hypersonic flow field is provided, where the only modeling input to the flow simulation are the $a\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}b$ $i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}n\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}o$ potential energy surfaces.