Experimental investigation of CO2 outflow from a high-pressure reservoir

An experimental investigation has been conducted to study the discharge of liquid CO2 from a pressurized vessel. Controlled release tests with different initial vessel pressures have been carried out. This paper focuses mainly on the high pressure zone inside the vessel and on the fluid expansion zone downstream of the nozzle. The main goal of the experiments is to get experimental data that help to understand the thermo-hydraulic behavior of CO2 that is being released from a pressurized reservoir. This is also of interest for further improvement and validation of existing and newly developed release and dispersion models. In this experimental work, the influence of varying the initial pressure inside the vessel on the outflow is examined. For each experiment the flow regime inside and outside the high pressure medium is described and discussed. © 2013 The Author.