Effusiometer

The effusiometer derives the density of gases from the time a predetermined volu
me
of gas takes to escape through a small opening or nozzle.
An apparatus (Fig. 9.1) built to this principle consists of a cylindrical contai
ner
with a calibrated glass tube, the metering
cylinder, reaching down from
the cover. The tube s upper end is
piped to a three-way cock, which
can be selectively switched between
charge and exhaust through a nozzle
of typically 0.5 to 1.0 mm bore.
Operation of the setup starts
with the cock in charge position and
the gas under test entering the tube
from above and bubbling out at the
lower end until the tube has been
purged of all residues from earlier
use and filled with the new charge.
Next, the cock is turned into its
exhaust position and the raising of the
water level in the tube being timed.
The time interval from the low to the
high mark on the walls of the
metering cylinder is then proportional
to the square root of gas density.
Inversely, the ratio of gas density
rG to air density rA follows from the
raise-times tG and tA for gas and air
respectively as rG=rA tG=tA2.
If it took with air, say, 10.00 s
for the liquid level to rise from the
low to the high mark, and for a
60=40% propane-butane mixture
13.64 s, the ratio of densities
becomes rG=rA 13:64=102 1:860, which gives the density of the mixture as
1:8601:293 2:406.
With 2.670 for the density of pure propane and 2.01 for butane, this checks
neatly with the rule of blends for computing the density of gas mixtures, in the
present case: 0:602:670 0:402:010 2:406 g=cm3.
Hydrogen and helium
Although helium accounts for 23% of the mass of the universe, it used to be so
rare on our home planet that its discovery in 1868 by J. Norman Lockyear happene
d
in the spectrum of a solar eclipse rather than in a laboratory on Earth. Only
the rise in production of natural gas, which contains up to 7.8% of helium, made
helium available in quantities sufficient for the replacement of hydrogen in bal
loons
and airships.
Previously, hydrogen-filled toy balloons had been playthings even for grownups,
who occasionally misused their cigarettes as igniters for balloon bombs.
First to fly a hydrogen filled-balloon was the French physicist Charles Jacques
Alexandre Cesar (1746 1823), who in 1783 reached 3200 meter of altitude. As recent
as 1931, the Swiss scientists Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer flew a hydrogen-
filled balloon 52,000 feet high into the stratosphere. Fear of fire was then a
way of life for ballooners, and Piccard reportedly struck a lit cigarette from b
etween
the lips of a bystander who had placidly been waiting to watch the take-off.
Likewise, the hydrogen-inflated airship Graf Zeppelin1 circled the globe in
1929 and made 144 ocean crossings between 1928 and 1938. And in the period
from 4 March 1936 to 6 May 1937, the rigid airship Hindenburg made 10 scheduled
cruises from Ludwigshafen, Germany, to New York and back. But a fire at
the landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey, marked the end of hydrogen-filled lighter
than air flying devices, and helium became the norm.
It seems surprising that helium, of atomic mass 4, could so easily supplant
hydrogen, of atomic mass 1, without significant loss of lift. One reason is that
helium,
from the group of noble gases, exists in the atomic state, while the highly
reactive hydrogen atom, known in chemistry as hydrogenium nascendi, hardly survi
ves
for more than 0.5 seconds before it binds with atoms next door, of principally
its own kind. Therefore, the chemical formula of the gas hydrogen is not H, but
H2, which makes the ratio of the molecular masses of helium to hydrogen 2:1,
rather than 4:1.
The lift obtained by supplanting 1 cubic meter of air, weighing 1.293 kg at 0 C,
by 1 cubic meter of hydrogen, that weighs 0.090 kg, is 1.2930.0901.203 kg/m3,
while the lift from replacing air by helium, of 0.180 kg=m3 of density, is
1:293  0:180 1:113 kg=m3 a mere 7.5% less , which shows that it wasn t
the higher density of helium that made lighter than air craft obsolete, but rath
er
the spectacular progress of commercial airplanes previous and beyond the introdu
ction
of the jet engine.
1 named after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838 1917).