The thermal conductivity of neon, methane and tetrafluoromethane

Abstract

New, absolute measurements of the thermal conductivity of neon (Ne), methane (CH 4) and tetrafluoromethane (CF 4) are reported for the temperature range 308 to 428 K at pressures up to 10 MPa. The data have an estimated accuracy of ±0.3%. A statistical analysis of the density dependence of the thermal conductivity has been employed to deduce the thermal conductivity of the gases in the limit of zero density and the firt density coefficient. For methane the first density coefficient is well represented by a correlation based on data for monatomic gases whereas for tetrafluoromethane the same correlation greatly underestimates the same coefficient. The thermal conductivity in the limit of zero density has been used in conjuction with other transport property data to deduce a consistent set of effective cross-sections for the two gases over all the range of temperature studied, based entirely on experiment. Among other quantities the collision number for rotational relaxation has been deduced and is shown to be significantly different between the two gases. Although the Mason-Monchick approximation is inappropriate for the evaluation of some of the effective cross-sections for the gases, a recent, very simple formulation of the kinetic theory of polyatomic gases provides a satisfactory description of the thermal conductivity data.