Saturation and Metastable Properties of the van der Waals Fluid

Modem applications require accurate thermodynamic equations of state that portray stable and metastable states of fluids. Earlier work has shown that the famous van der Waals equation, contrary to widely held views, finds its natural niche in the rank of real substances ordered according to their values of the acentric factor. In this note, the saturated and metastable state properties of a van der Waals fluid are presented in the form 'of a temperature table and a pressure table, A comparison of these results with the available data for mercury is made and it is established that mercury is approximated rather well as a van der Waals fluid, Les applications modemes exigent l'emploi d'equations d'etat thermodynamiques exactes decnvant les etats stable et metastable des fluides. Un travail anterieur a montre que la fameuse equation de van der Waals, contrairemenl a certains points de vue exprimes, trouve une place nature lie dans la classe des substances reelles ordonnees selon leurs valeurs du facteur "d'acentricite", On presente les propnetes aI'etat salure et metastable d ' un flu ide de van der Waals, sous forme d'un tableau de temperature et d'un tableau de pression, On a compare ces resultats avec les donnees disponibles pour Ie mercure et l'on a etabli que Ie mercure est assez bien represente par un fluide de van der Waals, There has been strong recent interest in the formulation (T = 0,7)] ' (w =-0.302 for a van der Waals fluid, or of equations of state, driven in part by the problems of 0.058 for a Redlich-Kwong fluid,) dealing with the superheated liquids and supercooled vapors Peck's conclusion (which we endorse) is, in effect, that if that arise in many modem heat transfer processes, Such a real substance with Zc = 3 / 8 or w =-0.302 were to b