NATO ARW Liquids Under Negative Pressure

Febr. 23-25, 2002, Budapest, Hungary

Limiting Superheat of Aqueous Solutions at Negative Pressures

V.E. Vinogradov , P.A. Pavlov Institute of Thermal Physics, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pervomaiskaya str. 91, GSP-828, Ekaterinburg 620219, Russia. E-mail: vinve@mail.ru

The temperature of the limiting superheat for water-ethyl alcohol, water-isobutyl alcohol and water-acetone solutions has been measured experiment in the region of negative pressures to -10 MPa at water concentration from o to 100%. In this work we used the method of pulse heating of a liquid at the surface of a platinum heater in a negative pressure wave. A platinum wire 20 m in diameter and 1 cm in length was heated with rectangular current pulses of duration 15-25 s. The surface temperature of the platinum wire was determined by its resistance with an error of no more than 3K. A negative-pressure wave of duration 3 s was created in a liquid when a pressure wave was reflected from its free surface. The error of determining the pressure in our experiments was 3-5%. The wire was placed at a depth of 5 mm from the liquid surface. Stretch and heating pulses were synchronized in such a way that the liquid boiling up on the wire took place at the moment when a stretch pulse passed the maximum. The pulse technique used made it possible to realize in experiments a nucleation rate J=1024 1026 m-3 s-1 . Dependences of the limiting-superheat temperature for pure liquids and solutions on the value of the negative pressure (T* (P)J) have been obtained in the region of temperatures exceeding the boiling temperature of pure components at atmospheric pressure. For organic liquids one can observe a continuous transition of the dependence T* (P)J from the region of positive into the region of negative pressures. Experimental results within the limits of experimental error agree with calculations by formulae of the homogeneous nucleation theory. In the case of water the slope of the curve T* (P)J increases in passing from positive to negative pressures. The discrepancy between experimental data and theory increases with the liquid stretch. Additions of water into organic liquids increase the slope of curves T* (P)J in the region of negative pressures when a certain concentration of water is achieved. Analysis of the results has shown that it happens when the concentration of water in a solution exceeds that of the azeotropic compound.