An In Situ Technique To Visualize Temperature and Velocity Fields in Liquid Biotechnical Substances at High Pressure

摘要

A first application of encapsulated thermochromic liquid crystals (TLCs) for the visualization of temperature and velocity fields in pressurized liquids has been studied experimentally. By means of a tempered high pressure optical cell, investigations have been carried out over wide temperature ranges and at pressures up to p=700 MPa. Two parameters were observed and analyzed during pressurization: the inhomogeneous temperature fields and concurrently occuring velocity fields. The motion of the test liquid is composed of forced and natural convection. The results illustrate that TLCs provide a suitable means of investigating thermodynamic fluid processes under high pressure. As such, the visualization of temperature and velocity fields using TLCs can be a key technique for the study of physicochemical phenomena occuring in high pressure applications.