Prediction of the viscosity of dense fluid mixtures

Abstract

The Vesovic-Wakeham (VW) method of predicting the viscosity of dense fluid mixtures has been improved by implementing new mixing rules based on the rigid sphere formalism. The proposed mixing rules are based on both Lebowitz's solution of the Percus-Yevick equation and on the Carnahan-Starling equation. The predictions of the modified VW method have been compared with experimental viscosity data for a number of diverse fluid mixtures: natural gas, hexane + hheptane, hexane + octane, cyclopentane + toluene, and a ternary mixture of hydrofluorocarbons (R32 + R125 + R134a). The results indicate that the proposed improvements make possible the extension of the original VW method to liquid mixtures and to mixtures containing polar species, while retaining its original accuracy.