I'd engineered a binary fluid by mixing in different proportions and found that the thermophysical properties results come in between the properties of the constituent parts. Does this situation exists or not?
Thanks in advance.
In some (even numerous) cases your observations is true. But we know many examples when the mixture behaviour become qualitatively different in comparison with components one. Best regards, Serge
In mixtures involving no chemical reaction, the physical properties such as density, specific heat of the mixture in most cases will be as you expected. However, it has to be verified whether the law of mixtures holds good for thermal conductivity and viscosity.
Dear S. Akilu.
You need to read textbooks where you will find good information about the behavior of real mixtures. You will learn first about ideal behavior but most important about excess properties.
Books dealing about chemical engineering and thermodynamics from Stan Sandler, from J M Prausnitz or from A. Firozabadi are highly recommended.
What you propose, is called an ideal mixture rule. But a lot a mixtures in the real world are not ideal and you must take into account so-called excess terms (e.g. when you mix alcohol and water, the final volume is smaller than the sum of the initial volumes).
You must also watch out to average the relevant properties. If you have mass fractions, the density is NOT the average of densities even for ideal cases: it is the mass volume (inverse of density) which is the average of mass volumes. For volume fractions, it is the opposite....
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