Thermal Conductivity Measurements on Fluid Hydrogen at 17 to 200°K and Pressures to 10 MN/m2

Abstract

The Cryogenics Division of the National Bureau of Standards is completing a ten-year experimental program on the properties of compressed gaseous and liquid parahydrogen. During the course of this program measurements have been made of PVT, specific heat, sound velocity, dielectric constant, refractive index, and viscosity coefficient at temperatures between 14 and 100°K and at pressures to 35 MN/m2. The thermal conductivity apparatus was designed by R. L. Powell and W. J. Hall H. M. Roder tested the apparatus by making several hundred thermal conductivity measurements on 4He gas, at temperatures between 20 and 282°K at pressures to 5 MN/m2 [1]. Helium was chosen because of its simple structure and because thermal conductivity and viscosity measurements in the temperature and pressure range of interest had been published previously. In 1968 several further improvements on the apparatus were made and 250 new measurements on the gaseous and liquid phases of normal and parahydrogen are now available. These measurements were made at temperatures between 17 and 200°K at pressures up to 10 MN/m2.