Compressible flow of a two-phase fluid between finite vessels—I: Ideal carrier gas

The transfer of a multiphase fluid from a high-pressure vessel to one initially at lower pressure is investigated. The fluid is composed of two phases which do not undergo any change. The phases consist of an ideal gas, and solid particles (or liquid droplets) having constant density. The mixture is assumed to be stagnant and always perfectly mixed as well as at thermal equilibrium in each constant volume vessel. The fluid also remains homogeneous and at equilibrium while flowing between vessels. The transport properties of the mixture are taken to be zero. One important finding is that the expanding mixture or pseudo-fluid behaves similarly to a polytropic Abel-Noble gas. The mixture thermodynamic properties, the end state in each vessel at pressure equilibrium, the critical parameters and time-dependent results are given for the adiabatic and isothermal limiting cases. The results include both initially sonic and initially subsonic transfers. No mathematical restriction is placed on the particle concentration, although some limiting results are given for small particle volume fraction. The mass transferred at adiabatic pressure equilibrium can be significantly less than that when thermal equilibrium is also reached. Furthermore, the adiabatic pressure equilibrium level may not be the same as that obtained at thermal equilibrium, even when all initial temperatures are the same. Finally, it is shown that the transfer times can be very slow compared to those of a pure gas due to the large reduction possible in the mixture sound speed.