next up previous
Next: About this document ... Up: Kinetic Theory of Gases: Previous: Gas of Dissimilar Particles,

Mean Free Path

Knowing the distribution of velocities, we can determine the collision frequency (as shown above). Knowing the previous two kinetic properties of a gas, we can now consider the Mean free path, the average distance a particle travels in between collisions. The question we are asking is:

In a unit of time, a particle travels a certain distance, along the way participating in a number of collisions. Thus, the mean free path (the distance travelled between collision events) is:

$\displaystyle Mean \ Free \ Path \ = \ \frac{\left< \nu \right> }{\left ( z_{12} + z_{11} \right)}$      



THE BOSS 2014-08-27