Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Gravity Wave Propagation In A Diffusively Separated Gas: Effects On The Total Gas, Michael P. Hickey Ph.D., R. L. Walterscheid

Publications

We present a full-wave model that simulates acoustic-gravity wave propagation in a binary-gas mixture of atomic oxygen and molecular nitrogen, including molecular viscosity and thermal conductivity appropriately partitioned between the two gases. Compositional effects include the collisional transfer of heat and momentum by mutual diffusion between the two gases. An important result of compositional effects is that the velocity and temperature summed over species can be significantly different from the results of one-gas models with the same height dependent mean molecular weight (M(z)). We compare the results of our binary-gas model to two one-gas full-wave models: one where M is …