Molecular extended thermodynamics of rarefied polyatomic gases and wave velocities for increasing number of moments Original Research Article

Molecular extended thermodynamics of rarefied polyatomic gases is characterized by two hierarchies of equations for moments of a suitable distribution function in which the internal degrees of freedom of a molecule is taken into account. On the basis of physical relevance the truncation orders of the two hierarchies are proven to be not independent on each other, and the closure procedures based on the maximum entropy principle (MEP) and on the entropy principle (EP) are proven to be equivalent.λ(N)E,maxc0⩾65(N−12),(c0=53kmT)