The supercritical « vaporization » process
by
Renée Gatignol
Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Laboratoire de Modélisation en Mécanique, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 PARIS cedex 05, FRANCE
Coauthors: Stéphane Préau, Roger Prud'homme

At pressures above the critical pressure, in the pure body case, liquid and vapor phases cannot coexist : the whole domain is monophasic. At such supercritical pressures, the relaxation process of a cold pocket of fluid in a hotter isobaric atmosphere is nevertheless similar to the vaporization process of a subcritical droplet provided that the thermal diffusivity in the droplet is clearly lower than the surrounding atmosphere [1]. In this case, a strong gradient in density and characteristic diffusion time insulates the cold pocket from the atmosphere. This strong gradient area can be seen as a thick interface and the terms "vaporization" and "droplet" are used to describe the phenomenon.

[1] S. Préau, Etude théorique et numérique de l'"évaporation" d'une "goutte" de densité critique le long d'une isobare légèrement supercritique, Thèse de l'Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 2003.

Date received: March 31, 2004

Copyright © 2004 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # canw-29.