ABSTRACT
New measurements of the thermal conductivity of argon, nitrogen and carbon monoxide within the temperature range 83 K to 387 K and for pressures up to 10MPa have been performed. The experimental data have an estimated accuracy of ±0.5% and are used in this paper to derive values of the first coefficient of the density expansion of the thermal conductivity of unprecedented accuracy over such a wide range of temperature. The results are compared with a theoretical evaluation of the coefficient for argon and with several empirical estimations for nitrogen and carbon monoxide. The agreement with the theoretical calculation of Rainwater and Friend for argon is good while for nitrogen and carbon monoxide the same theory with a semi-empirical addition to account for the internal energy proves more successful than the Modified Enskog Theory.
