On the Kinetic Theory of Dense Fluids. XVII. The Shear Viscosity

In this paper we report a theoretical study of the shear viscosity of dense fluids along with some measurements of the viscosity of liquid Ar. It is found that the theory of Rice and Allnatt leads to predictions of the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity under conditions of constant volume in good agreement with experiment. Also, the magnitudes of the predicted shear viscosity agree very well at T=128°K, p=50 atm (ηcalc=0.727×10—3 P, ηobs=0.835×10—3 P) and moderately well at T=90°K, p=1.3 atm (ηcalc=1.74×10—3 P, ηobs=2.39×10—3 P). The importance of obtaining accurate intermolecular pair potentials and pair correlation functions is discussed briefly.