Region of applicability and the main features of the generalized Chapman-Enskog method

Abstract

The present paper is made necessary by the publication of the foregoing paper in this issue by Kolesnichenko [1]. It considers the basic propositions of the generalized Chapman-Enskog method and analyzes the arguments put forward by Kolesnichenko [1] and the validity of the method. The position of the results obtained by Kolesnichenko [14–17] is indicated. Nonequilibrium flows of multiatomic gases in which there occur processes of exchange of internal energy of the molecules in collisions between them and chemical reactions (such processes are called inelastic) are encountered frequently in nature and technology. It is therefore naturally of interest to derive gas-dynamic equations for such flows. The methods of the kinetic theory of gases were first used to obtain equations describing the limiting cases of very fast inelastic processes that take place in times of the order of the molecule-molecule collision times (equilibrium case) and very slow inelastic processes that take place over times of the order of the characteristic flow time (relaxation case). In [2–5], an algorithm was proposed for deriving gas-dynamic equations valid for arbitrary ratios of the rates of the elastic and inelastic processes and reducing to the well-known equations for the limiting cases already mentioned. The algorithm is called the generalized Chapman-Enskog method (abbreviated to the generalized method). The development, modification, and analysis of its properties can be found in [4, 6–13]. In [1], Kolesnichenko has questioned the validity of this algorithm.