Density and viscosity measurement of diesel fuel compositions at high pressure

The dynamic viscosity and density of diesel fuels have been studied at 25°-100°C and up to 500 MPa. Accurate measurement and predictive procedures of fluid properties under high-pressure conditions is of increasing interest in many fields such as crude oil extraction, automotive engine fuel injection, braking and hydraulic systems. Volume changes were measured for pure and binary alkane mixtures, and several diesel fuel compositions using a micro-PVT device. N-Octane and iso-octane were used for calibration against reference data to within 0.2% accuracy. The application to mixtures of commercially-used high-pressure hydrocarbon mixtures was extended, and the validity of available predictive density and viscosity models against experimental data was tested. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 7th World Congress of Chemical Engineering (Glasgow, Scotland 7/10-14/2005).