Gas-dynamic equations for spatially inhomogeneous gas mixtures with internal degrees of freedom. I. General theory

A general algorithm for building a uniform asymptotic solution of the kinetic equations for spatially inhomogeneous reactive gas mixtures is proposed. It solves the problem of irregular asymptotic solution arising in the ordinary Chapman–Enskog method, providing expressions for chemical reaction rates that agree with the mono-molecular reaction theory. We study a quasi-stationary behavior of the system, characterized by the slowly varying gas-dynamic variables which number is greater than the number of integral invariants of the collision operator. The gas-dynamic equations for reacting and relaxing gas mixtures are derived in general form. It is shown that accurate treatment of non-equilibrium processes gives rise to additional terms caused by the strong influence of small perturbations of quasi-equilibrium distribution functions on the kinetics of high-threshold physical and chemical processes. These terms are describing the influence of inelastic collisions, expansion/compression processes and spatial non-uniformity of gas-dynamic variables.