  In a scramjet, the fuel can be used to cool down the engine walls. The
thermal decomposition of the jet fuel changes the reacting mixture before its
combustion. A numerical study of the pyrolysis of norbornane, a jet fuel
surrogate, has been performed. Rate constants of some sensitive reaction
channels have been calculated by means of quantum chemical calculations at the
CBS-QB3 level of theory. The mechanism has been validated against experimental
results obtained in a jet-stirred reactor and important and/or sensitive
pathways have been derived.
