The Grüneisen Parameter in Fluids

The Gruneisen parameter has long been used in equations of state for solids to relate thermodynamic properties to lattice vibrational spectra [1]. A few papers have extended the concept to studies of liquid structure. Knopoff and Shapiro [2] have evaluated a Gruneisen parameter for water and for mercury, attempting to relate its temperature dependence in a limited range to atomic clustering within the liquid. Sharma [3], in a series of papers, has evaluated a pseudo-Gruneisen parameter in mercury and liquefied gases and related it to internal pressures, a solubility parameter, and clustering phenomena. In this paper we evaluate the Gruneisen parameter for a variety of fluids, and show how it occurs in many problems in compressible fluid hydrodynamics, without reference to concepts of liquid structure. The work extends that reported in an earlier paper for the special case of steady state, single phase flow [4].