The specific heat of gases at high temperatures

Abstract

For many years work has been in progress in the Engineering Department of the National Physical Laboratory on problems involving the explosion of gaseous mixtures in a closed vessel or bomb (Fenning 1924, 1925, 1926; Fenning and Tizard 1927). The experience gained and the technique developed were considered to warrant a new attack being made on the measurement of the specific heats of gases at high temperatures, particularly of those gases which comprise the working substance of the internal combustion engine. The work was therefore put in hand and carried out for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. At the time the investigation was started a considerable amount of data, based on explosion experiments, was available, and this was being supplemented by values of the specific heat obtained from the analysis of the band spectra of the gases concerned. Activity in this latter field has continued and values are now available for a considerable number of gases over a wide temperature range as will be seen from a summary by Lewis and von Elbe (1935 a ) published about three years ago.