Extended hard-sphere model for the viscosity of dense fluids

Abstract

An extended hard-sphere model is reported that may be applied to correlate and predict the viscosity of gases, liquids and supercritical fluids. The method is based on the hard-sphere model of Dymond and Assael and uses their roughness factors and molar core volumes to relate reduced viscosity to a universal function of reduced volume. The extended model behaves correctly in the limit of low densities and offers improved accuracy at high densities. The new universal reference function was determined from a large database of experimental viscosities for alkanes extending up to reduced densities of 0.84. It has been tested by correlating the viscosity of two high-viscosity liquids not used in the development of the universal function and has shown to perform satisfactorily up to reduced densities of approximately 0.9.