INVESTIGATION OF THERMAL RELAXATION IN NOZZLE FLOWS BY ANALYSIS OF THE GAS-KINETIC VELOCITY DISTRIBUTION

摘要

Thermal relaxation in the production of ultrasonic flows in the transitional zone between a gas-dynamic and a molecular form of flow is dis¬covered from the velocity distribution of molecular beams obtained by passing the ultrasonic flows into a high vacuum. The velocity distributions are deter¬mined by a time-of-flight method.nThe method is applied to uranium hexafluoride and carbon dioxide;in the first case considerable pressure dependence of the degree of accommodation of the total energy is found, but in the second case, as may be expected, practically no pressure dependence is observed.