Heat-Capacity Lag in Gas Dynamics

Abstract

The existence of energy dissipations in gas dynamics, which must be attributed to a lag in the vibrational heat capacity of the gas, has been established both theoretically and experimentally. The flow about a very small impact tube is discussed. It is shown that total‐head defects due to heat‐capacity lag during and after the compression of the gas at the nose of an impact tube are to be anticipated. Experiments quantitatively verifying these anticipations in carbon dioxide are discussed. A general theory of the dissipations in a more general flow problem is developed and applied to some special cases. It is pointed out that energy dissipations due to this effect are to be anticipated in turbines. Dissipations of this kind might also introduce errors in cases in which the flow of one gas is used in an attempt to simulate the flow of another gas. Unfortunately, the relaxation times of most of the gases of engineering importance have not been studied. A new method of measuring the relaxation time of gases is introduced in which the total‐head defects observed with a specially shaped impact tube are compared with theoretical considerations. A parameter is thus evaluated in which the only unknown quantity is the relaxation time of the gas. This method has been applied to carbon dioxide and has given consistent results for two impact tubes at a variety of gas velocities.