A compact curved vibrating wire technique for measurement of hydrogen gas viscosity

Studies with the view to application of a curved vibrating wire method to measure hydrogen gas viscosity have been done. A fine tungsten wire with a nominal diameter of 50 mu m is bent into a semi-circular shape and arranged symmetrically in a magnetic field. The frequency domain response for forced oscillation of the wire is used for calculating the viscosity. Argon, nitrogen, helium and hydrogen viscosities have been measured at room temperature up to 0.7 MPa. The deviations with respect to existing equations suggest that with more refinements it may be possible to take gas viscosity measurements with a precision of less than 1%. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.