Transport Properties of Multicomponent Gas Mixtures

Abstract

Equations are derived for the viscosity, ordinary (pressure) diffusion, and thermal diffusion of multicomponent mixtures of gases. The ordinary diffusion velocities are expressed in terms of the usual diffusion coefficients for binary mixtures. The analysis is an extension of the work of Chapman and Cowling. It is shown that the Chapman‐Cowling and Enskog procedure can be justified on the basis of a variational principle. This variational principle should be generally applicable to a large class of problems.