Prediction of the Thermal Conductivity of Gas Mixtures at Low Pressures

Abstract

Three methods, namely, Mason–Saxena–Wassiljewa (MSW), Hirschfelder–Eucken (HE), and Schreiber–Vesovic–Wakeham (SVW), for predicting the thermal conductivity of nonpolar, multicomponent, molecular mixtures in the dilute-gas limit were tested against the available experimental data. Overall, the accuracy of the MSW method is judged to be of the order of ±6 to 8% while that of HE and SVW is ±2 to 3%. For the latter two methods this is a remarkably good agreement, considering the approximations made in deriving the prediction scheme from the kinetic theory results. The agreement achieved indicates that the HE and SVW methods can form the basis of accurate engineering estimation techniques for the thermal conductivity of gaseous mixtures at low pressures.