The Effect of Dissolved Gases on the Tensile Strength of Liquids

A theoretical investigation is made of the amount by which a dissolved gas should reduce the tensile strength of a liquid. The tensile strength is assumed proportional to the surface energy of a vapour nucleus, which is further assumed to have the form of a product of a function of its radius and a function of the dissolved gas concentration. The surface tension of a one-component system is expressed in terms of the van der Waals constants (developing Fowler's theory) and the treatment is extended to a two-component system on the basis of Wall and Stent's theory of van der Waals binary mixtures. The conclusion is reached that the reduction in the tensile strength of water caused by saturating it with air at a pressure of one atmosphere is less than ½%.