Loss of tensile strength in liquids without property discontinuities: A thermodynamic analysis

Abstract

The thermodynamically consistent behavior of any fluid whose tensile strength exhibits a maximum with respect to temperature (tensile instability) is derived for the case where the isochore corresponding to the fluid density at such a maximum is single branched (i.e., a metastable solution exists only for temperatures higher than the tensile instability temperature). The resulting thermal and volumetric picture is considerably simpler than for the recently derived behavior corresponding to the case where the tensile instability isochore admits metastable solutions both above and below the tensile instability temperature (double-branched limiting isochore). Density extrema are inseparable from tensile strength maxima: a tensile instability is, in fact, the low-pressure intersection of a spinodal curve and a locus of density extrema.