Speed of sound and derived thermodynamic properties of para-xylene at temperatures between (306 and 448) K and at pressures up to 66 MPa

Abstract

The speed of sound in p-xylene has been measured at temperatures ranging from (306 to 447) K and at pressures from just above saturation to 66 MPa. Measurements were performed using a new double-path pulse-echo instrument, fabricated from Invar 36, that was designed for ease of assembly and calibration as well as robust operation. The cell’s path length was calibrated with water at a single state point against the IAPWS-95 equation of state, with path length corrections for temperatureandpressure calculated using material-property data. Validation measurements on water over the range of experimental conditions investigated resulted in deviations from IAPWS-95 smaller than the equation’s relative uncertainty of 0.1 %. The expanded relative uncertainty of the measurements over the reported ranges of pressure and temperature varied from (0.023 to 0.104) % at 95 % confidence. The measured data for p-xylene were compared with the Helmholtz equation of state (EOS) of Zhou et al., which is stated to have a relative uncertainty in sound-speed of 0.3 % in the liquid region. Relative deviations between experiment and the EOS of up to 1 % were observed, especially at high temperatures and low pressures, indicating that the current Helmholtz model should be revised using the new experimental data. Additionally, density, isobaric specific heat capacity, and other thermodynamic properties of p-xylene were derived from the speed-of-sound data by thermodynamic integration; these results expand upon the available literature data and are generally in good agreement with the current Helmholtz EOS. The relative expanded uncertainties for liquid density and isobaric specific heat capacity in this work are estimated to be 0.2 % and 1 %, respectively, equivalent to the uncertainty of the EOS.