Impact of water (H2O) vitiation on auto-ignition characteristics of kerosene/air mixtures was investigated behind the reflected shock waves covering pressures of 0.45–7.5 atm and temperatures of 900–1450 K. Arrheniustype expressions were fitted for both mixtures with and without H2O using multiple linear regression method.Temperature- and pressure-dependences of ignition delay times were experimentally observed to be in-line withconventional hydrocarbons for all the test mixtures, but stronger pressure-dependence exhibited when presenceof H2O. A four-component surrogate model fuel (25.7% n-tetradecane/23.0% 2-methylundecane/42.1% n-butylcyclohexane/9.2% n-butylbenzene) was proposed based on similarity criterion of function group. A surrogate mechanism was subsequently assembled by incorporating the modified rate rule of certain reaction class. The proposed kinetic model reproduces well the experimental observations at the entire conditions. Thermal and
kinetic effects of H2O on the RP-3 reactivity were distinguished by factitiously inducing a weak collision H2O* and an inert H2O**. Results reveal that the kinetic-based promotion of H2O outweighs the thermal-based inhibition on the RP-3 reactivity at high pressures due to higher collision efficiency, which facilitates the reaction H2O2 (+M) ⟺ OH + OH (+M). However, the RP-3 reactivity is inhibited only by thermodynamics without kinetics at low pressures.