Experimental investigation of Ethane and Propane injection under sub- and super-critical conditions

Overview & Synopsis

Studying a fluid flow under high-pressure conditions through reliable experiments is still nowadays a challenge.When the chamber pressure exceeds the critical pressure of working fluids the supercritical state of matter is reached and the distinction between gas and liquid becomes blurred. For such special conditions, experimental data are scarce and need to be consolidated. Indeed, the modification of the local refractive index induced by den- sity gradient needs to be analyzed with appropriate image-based technique.In the present study, the REFINE test bench (Real-gas Effect on Fluid Injection: a Numerical and Experimental study) has been designed at CORIA Lab to study the non-reactive injection of Ethane and Propane into Nitrogen under sub- and supercritical conditions. The ambient gas pressure can be raised up to 6 MPa and warmed up to 573 K to scan sub- and trans-critical injections. The chamber is equipped with two perpendicular optical axes allowing simultaneously different optical diagnostics. Experimental data are collected from shadowgraph and dif- fused backlight illumination techniques. Quantitative measurements of jet spre ding angle and breakup length arecompared to results coming from literature exhibiting multiple flows topologies.