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Equipment is described that was used in making velocity and temperature measurements at various points within an air stream flowing in a smooth, rectangular channel 0.675 inch in height, 12 3/8 inches in width, and 162 inches in length. The aspect ratio of the channel was such that flow along the center line was essentially two-dimensional. In addition to equipment for velocity and temperature measurements, means were provided for establishing the thermal flux from the upper wall of the channel into the flowing air stream.

Atmospheric particles, or particulate matter, can be solid or liquid with diameters varying from around 0.002[micrometers] to roughly 100[micrometers]. Atmospheric aerosol sources can be classified as primary or secondary, with the primary aerosol being directly emitted from the corresponding sources and the secondary particles being formed in the atmosphere, for example, from gas-phase chemical reactions that produce condensable vapors. At the same time aerosol particles are ultimately connected with the formation of water droplets and equivalently with the formation of clouds and fogs in the atmosphere.

The internal energy and the entropy components of the elastic restoring force in rubbers were determined for natural rubber up to an extension ratio of about 3.0. Four different experimental measurements were necessary to determine these components: (1) the force-temperature coefficient at constant temperature and length; (2) the force-pressure coefficient at constant temperature and length; (3) the thermal expansion coefficient at constant length; and (4) the isothermal compressibility at constant length. The force-temperature and the force-pressure coefficients were functions of strain whereas the expansion coefficients and the isothermal compressibilities were independent of strain. These measurements gave an internal energy contribution of 23% for natural rubber independent of the strain over the range of extensions studied.

I. A numerical method was developed for smoothing thermodynamic data with a digital computer. As a feasibility study, data on specific volume and enthalpy from the skeleton tables of the Sixth International Conference on the Properties of Steam and from the tables of Keenan and Keyes were smoothed and interpolated. Orthogonal polynomials of temperature and pressure were used as the smoothing functions. In order to maintain thermodynamic onsistency between the smoothed values of the two thermodynamic properties, Lagrange multipliers were used in conjunction with least squares techniques to accomplish the curve fitting. Excellent agreement was obtained between tabulated and smoothed values of the above properties and their derivatives except near the critical region where data were sparse. The method is recommended for the smoothing of the above and other thermodynamic properties which may be subject to consistency restrictions.

II. Data on the Chapman-Cowling diffusion coefficients of liquid hydrocarbons were expressed analytically in terms of the physical properties of the liquid phase and the nature of the components. The weight fraction of the light component, temperature, and the molecular weight of the heavy component served satisfactorily as independent variables to describe the recent data of Sage for binary hydrocarbon systems. The results permit the calculation of the Chapman-Cowling diffusion coefficients in the liquid phase for saturated hydrocarbons from methane through n-decane.

The present article reviews some of our present understanding of the electromagnetic zero-point (ZP) fields, in particular regarding concepts in thermodynamics related to energy and heat extraction. Topics that will be touched on are (1) the relationship between the ZP fields and the nonzero temperature thermodynamic equilibrium situations, (2) the more general nonequilibrium case, (3) energy and heat extraction, (4) reversible and irreversible thermodynamic operations, (5) the connection of all of these ideas to conventional ideas on thermodynamics, (6) “restraints” on extracting heat and energy from electromagnetic ZP radiation, (7) a brief summary of our present understanding of many of the key properties of electromagnetic ZP fields, and (8) an outlook on making use of the ZP fields for energy extraction. The aim here will be to be fairly qualitative, as a number of articles exist that explain more of the details of these topics.

All of these topics will be treated from the viewpoint that the electromagnetic ZP fields are real. Certainly there are other viewpoints, including Schwinger's source theoretical viewpoint, but these viewpoints are all connected and are presently generally thought to be consistent (Milonni, 1994). Moreover, there are1 “... many observable
consequences of the vacuum field, including spontaneous emission, the Lamb shift, the anomalous magnetic moment, van der Waals forces, and the fundamental laser linewidth, all of which may be attributed at least in part to the vacuum field.” The viewpoint that the ZP fields are real certainly makes the thermodynamic discussion much easier and more natural and so shall be followed here.