Thermal conductivity of mixtures of monatomic gases and translational relaxation

Abstract

The theory of thermal relaxation of translational degrees of freedom as developed by Sather and Dahler has been applied to the thermal conduction in mixtures of monatomic gases. The thermal conductivity expression of Cowling, Gray and Wright, and Wright and Gray, is corrected to take into account the effect of translational relaxation. The expression leads to appreciably different results only when the molecules involved differ in masses significantly. The numerical results are given for the He+Xe system, where this correction explains a part of the difference observed between the experimental and theoretical values.