The hard-sphere model for a liquid metal a comparison with experiment

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Abstract
Experimental values of the isothermal compressibility, βT , and the thermal pressure coefficient, yv, for liquid metals near the melting point have been compared with those predicted from the analytic solution of the Percus—Yevick equation for the hard-sphere model of a fluid. The calculations employed the value for the packing fraction, η = 0·45, which is known to give satisfactory agreement between theoretical and experimental results for the liquid structure factor, a(K). In the present work, better agreement between theory and experiment was found for yv than for βT . On the basis of the good agreement for yv found for the majority of the metals considered, the model has been applied to Hg to calculate the density dependence of the packing fraction and the hard-sphere diameter, and has also been used to estimate yv and βT for a number of liquid metals for which no direct measurements are known to be available.