Open Collections

Wave propagation in rarefied gases

University of British Columbia

This thesis describes an investigation of the propagation of a pressure wave, through a long straight pipe, in a rarefied atmosphere of Argon. This phenomenon is approximately analogous to thermal wave propagation in the boundary scattering limit. Casimir and Ziman studied this latter phenomenon for the steady state case. P.W. Matthews extended their theory to the non-steady state and found a diffusion coefficient D depending on L. Smoluchowski studied the corresponding phenomenon in gases for the steady state and again P.W. Matthews extended the theory to the non-steady state, and again found a dependence of D on L. Therefore at the low frequency limit a wave pressure velocity would depend on L. An experiment was set up in order to produce a wave pressure and measure its velocity as a function of the frequency and the pressure and hence L. Results have been obtained and no dependence on the pressure has been observed.

Text

2011-06-07

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/35188

Physics

University of British Columbia

Graduate