Permeability Characterize of Polymeric Materials at High-Temperature and High-Pressure

Abstract

A new experimental set-up has been built to characterize the permeation of polymeric materials. The permeation of Helium through the variety of polymers under different pressure and temperature conditions was investigated. In this study, the gas permeation measurement has been performed by a high temp/high pressure gas permeation cell. Constant volume (variable pressure) procedure was considered to design this gas permeation cell. In designing the permeation cell, special consideration has been made to build a permeation cell appropriate for testing polymer samples in high pressure (up to 1200 psi) and high temperature (up to 100 °C) conditions. The permeation cell consists of two gas chambers; the high pressure side and the low pressure side. A modular plugin has been designed to place inside the gas chambers, and make the design adjustable for testing polymers with different thicknesses. Pressure change in the lower side of the set-up was measured by sensitive pressure transducer. Downstream pressure side will be used in the calculation of gas flux and gas permeation coefficient of polymers, along with differential pressure applied to polymer sample and test conditions as temperature. The results of permeability measurements for thick polymer samples at different pressure and temperature showed that the effects of increasing temperature on gas permeation are prominent compared to effect of high pressure condition.