ISSN:
0001-1541
Keywords:
Chemistry
;
Chemical Engineering
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Process Engineering, Biotechnology, Nutrition Technology
Notes:
The first quantitative, reproducible experimental results are presented for the compressive wave generated in a gas by a rapid rise in the temperature of a bounding solid surface. When a resistive-capacitive electrical circuit rapidly heats a thin foil constituting one end of a closed polyacetal cylindrical tube to a high temperature, the amplitude of the initial traveling peak in pressure is proportional to the maximum rise in temperature of the heated surface and depends critically on the heating rate. This amplitude is twice as high for argon as for helium, and is intermediate and essentially the same for nitrogen and air. For all conditions, the wave celerity is slightly greater than the adiabatic acoustic velocity. The waves have a very sharp front and a long region of decay, which is contradictory to the sinusoidal waves postulated by Rayleigh and the nearly symmetrical ones predicted by all prior numerical solutions as well as by the asymptotic solution of Trilling. Such compressive waves and their reflections increase the transient heating rate of a confined gas, may produce unsuspected and unwanted disturbances in otherwise static systems, and offer a possible means of remote detection of excursions in the temperature of a surface.
Additional Material:
19 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aic.690410202
