Special Equations of State for Methane, Argon, and Nitrogen for the Temperature Range from 270 to 350 K at Pressures up to 30 MPa

Abstract

In order to describe the thermodynamic behavior of methane, argon, and nitrogen in the so-called “natural-gas region,” namely, from 270 to 350 K at pressures up to 30 MPa as accurate as possible with equations of a very simple form, new equations of state for these three substances have been developed. These equations are in the form of a fundamental equation in the dimensionless Helmholtz energy; for calculating the pressure or the density, the corresponding equations explicit in pressure are also given. The residual parts of the Helmholtz function representing the behavior of the real gas contain 12 fitted coefficients for methane, 8 for argon, and 7 for nitrogen. The thermodynamic relations between the Helmholtz energy and the most important thermodynamic properties and the needed derivatives of the equations are explicitly given; to assist the user there is also a table with values for computer-program verification. The uncertainties when calculating the density ρ, the speed of sound w, the isobaric specific heat capacity c _p, and the isochoric specific heat capacity c _v are estimated as follows. For all three substances it is Δρ/ρ≤±0.02 % for p≤ 12 MPa and Δρ/ρ ≤ ±0.05% for higher pressures. For methane it is Δw/w≤±0.02% for p≤10 MPa and Δw/w≤+-0.1% for higher pressures; for argon it is Δw/w≲-0.1 % for p≤ 7 MPa, Δw/w≤±0.3 % for 7 <p≤30 MPa; and for nitrogen it is Δw/w≤±0.1% for p≤1.5 MPa and Δw/w±0.5% for higher pressures. For all three substances it is Δc _p/c _p≤±1 % and ΔC _v/C _v≤±1 % in the entire range.