Sound Propagation in Dilute Polyatomic Gases

Abstract

Abstract Sound propagation in dilute pure gases, both monatomic and polyatomic, has been considered from the point of view of the Waldmann-Snider equation. It is shown that the commonly employed assumption that sound propagation in gases is equivalent to the propagation of plane waves is valid only in the region where collisions restore equilibrium faster than it is perturbed by the sound waves. A systematic truncation procedure for an expansion of the perturbation function in irreducible Cartesian tensors is introduced and then illustrated in solutions for three specific kinds of molecules, helium, nitrogen and rough spheres. The agreement between theory and experiment is rather good for sound absorption in the region where the ratio of the collision and sound frequencies is greater than 1.5. The agreement in the case of dispersion is good over the whole measured pressure range. One useful result obtained is to show the polyatomic gas calculations in second approximation have as good agreement with experiment as the calculations for noble gases in third approximation. This can be related to the possession by the polyatomic gas of a bulk viscosity which dominates in sound propagation.