A novel educational laboratory experiment for constant-mass expansion of petroleum fluids

Abstract This paper presents a new way to conduct an educational experiment for bubble-point determination of a hydrocarbon mixture. The visual fluid cell newly designed for educational purposes made it possible to teach bubble-point determination safely at low cost within a few hours for groups of students in a laboratory class. The educational experiment developed has been successfully implemented for three semesters at the authors’ institution with positive responses from a vast majority of the students. It is hoped that this paper helps other interested instructors enhance students’ learning experience in the subject of fluid properties.