Boltzmann collision operator for polyatomic gases in agreement with experimental data and DSMC method

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the Boltzmann equation based on a continuous internal energy variable to model polyatomic gases with constant specific heats. We propose a family of models for the collision kernel and evaluate the nonlinear Boltzmann collision operator to get explicit expressions for transport coefficients like shear and bulk viscosities, thermal conductivity, depending on the collision kernel parameters. This model is shown to contain as a special case the collision kernel used in the direct simulation Monte Carlo method with the variable hard sphere cross section. Then, we show that it is possible to choose parameters in such a way that we recover various physical phenomena, in particular, experimental data for the shear viscosity, Prandtl number and the ratio of bulk and shear viscosities at the same time.