Prediction of compressed air transport properties at elevated pressures and high temperatures using simple method

Abstract

Compressed air energy storage is a way to store energy generated at one time for use at another time. At utility scale, energy generated during periods of low energy demand can be released to meet higher demand periods. Also compressed air is a commonly used utility across most manufacturing and processing industries as its production and handling are safe and easy. Compressed air systems are critical and play a pivotal role in the proper operation of many processing facilities since most of the instruments and controls depend on pressurized instrumentation air for operation. In this work, a simple predictive tool, which is easier than current available models involving a large number of parameters, requiring more complicated and longer computations, is presented here for the prediction of transport properties (namely thermal conductivity and viscosity) of compressed air at elevated pressures as a function of temperature and pressure using a simple Arrhenius-type function. The proposed correlation predicts the transport properties of air for temperature range between 260 and 1000 K, and pressures up to 1000 bar (100 MPa). Estimations are found to be in excellent agreement with the reliable data in the literature with average absolute deviation being around 1.28% and 0.68% for thermal conductivity and viscosity respectively.