Computer simulation of a pressure‐volume‐temperature process

Purpose – The study of pressure‐volume‐temperature (PVT) process is necessary to understand the physical behaviour of materials. This paper seeks to develop a simulation procedure to predict phase behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – The procedure consisted of the application of a thermo‐mechanical nonlinear model that simulated the behavior of the test sample in the PVT apparatus. Software Ansys was used for modeling this case, making a subroutine in APDL language. The real time data of the experimental procedure in PVT apparatus were applied in the computer simulation, that is the real time of application of pressure and heating scaling of the sample were taken into account. A specific case was simulated and its results compared with those obtained from the real experimental test. In order to evaluate phase changes, enthalpy was considered using an approximated expression described in the paper.Findings – Results obtained from the simulation were compared with the resulting isobaric graphics of the e...