A conservative multi-group approach to the Boltzmann equations for reactive gas mixtures

Starting from a simple kinetic model for a quaternary mixture of gases undergoing a bimolecular chemical reaction, multi-group integro-differential equations are derived for the particle distribution functions of all species. The procedure takes advantage of a suitable probabilistic formulation, based on the underlying collision frequencies and transition probabilities, of the relevant reactive kinetic equations of Boltzmann type. Owing to an appropriate choice of a sufficiently large number of weight functions, it is shown that the proposed multi-group equations are able to fulfil exactly, at any order of approximation, the correct conservation laws that must be inherited from the original kinetic equations, where speed was a continuous variable. Future developments are also discussed. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.