Comparison of Experimental Data and Model Results for the Depressurization of an Air Tank

A laboratory experiment/demonstration and modeling study was developed for junior-level chemical engineering students that can serve as excellent training for the venting calculations performed in practice.A simple incompressible flow experiment was conducted in depressurizing an 11 gal (0.042 m 3 ) air tank from 80 to 22.5 psig (5.4 to 1.5 atm) through a sharp-edged orifice.A mathematical model was developed to predict the pressure of the air tank as a function of time using flow equations and an Euler integration.The model predicted the experimental data very well, with a maximum variance from the data of 14% for the initial time step of 0 -75 s.