The hard ellipsoid-of-revolution fluid II. The y-expansion equation of state

Abstract

The γ-expansion as introduced by Barboy and Gelbart is applied to a system of hard ellipsoids-of-revolution. The expansion is truncated after the third order term yielding an approximate theory requiring the second- and third-virial coefficients as inputs. As the third virial coefficient is not known analytically, numerical results are obtained for this quantity. The equation of state is obtained from a free-energy variational calculation. The results are compared with Monte Carlo data taken from the preceding paper in this series. The application of scaled particle theory to the same system is discussed, and shown to have serious shortcomings.