AN IMPROVED ITERATION METHOD FOR THE CALCULATION OF SURFACE TENSION USING THE SIGNIFICANT STRUCTURE THEORY OF LIQUIDS

Abstract

An improved iteration method for calculating the surface tension developed by Chang et al. is presented. To test it, the surface tensions of the following liquids are calculated: A, N₂, CH₄, PH₂, Br₂, C₆H₆, HgCl₂, and TiCl₄.

The calculated results show the present method is an improvement over that of Chang et al. In addition to the change in the energy of sublimation of a molecule in a surface layer, which Chang et al. considered, the less important but not negligible effects on the number of nearest neighbors, η_i, and the characteristic temperature, θ_i, are now included. η_i is proportional to the effective local density, and θ_i is proportional to the square root of the effective local density. The calculated values fit the experimental data somewhat more closely than those calculated by the original method of Chang et al.