THERMOPHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF ALKALI-METAL VAPORS .1A. PREDICTION AND CORRELATION OF TRANSPORT-PROPERTIES FOR MONATOMIC SYSTEMS

New calculations of the collision integrals for the singlet potential functions involved in the determination of viscosity, thermal conducti vity and self-diffusion coefficients of the monatomic alkali metal vap ours are presented. An interpolation procedure for the calculation of the monatomic systems transport coefficients in a large temperature ra nge is provided. This is based on temperature correlations of the coll ision integrals for the singlet and triplet potential functions. The c alculations have been carried out using a new potential function for t he ground singlet state of the alkali diatomics. This is a recent vers ion of the Extended Hartree-Fock Approximate Correlation Energy (EHFAC E2U), proposed by Varandas et al., which is believed to give a correct description of the potential energy to vanishing internuclear distanc es. The results which are compared with previous calculations, are int ended to be utilized in Part II of this paper in order to assess avail able experimental data on the viscosity and thermal conductivity coeff icients of the alkali metal vapours.