An Analytical Investigation of Three General Methods of Calculating Chemical-Equilibrium Compositions

The Brinkley, Huff, and White methods for chemical-equilibrium calculations were modified and extended in order to permit an analytical comparison. The extended forms of these methods permit condensed species as reaction products, include temperature as a variable in the iteration, and permit arbitrary estimates for the variables. It is analytically shown that the three extended methods can be placed in a form that is independent of components. In this form the Brinkley iteration is identical computationally to the White method, while the modified Huff method differs only'slightly from these two. The convergence rates of the modified Brinkley and White methods are identical; and, further, all three methods are guaranteed to converge and will ultimately converge quadratically. It is concluded that no one of the three methods offers any significant computational advantages over the other two.