Calibration Fluids and Calibration Equations: How Choices May Affect the Results of Density Measurements Made with U-Tube Densimeters

Abstract

Data on the calibration fluids water and toluene individually, and the combination of those two sets of data, were correlated with two different equations (resulting in six sets of calibration equation parameters) to analyze data measured with a vibrating-tube densimeter on the lubricants pentaerythritol tetrapentanoate (POE5), pentaerythritol tetraheptanoate (POE7), and pentaerythritol tetranonanoate (POE9) at temperatures from 270 K to 470 K and pressures from 0.5 MPa to 50 MPa. The objective was to explore how the calculated densities of the lubricants would differ based on the calibration equations and calibration fluid(s). The viscosities of the measured lubricants are much greater than those of the calibration fluids, and because there has long been a question of how measurements of higher viscosity fluids are affected when measured with a vibrating-tube densimeter, combinations of calibration fluid(s) and equations were tested to explore the role they play in obtaining accurate results. For the lubricants studied herein, more accurate results were obtained with a calibration fitted to multiple calibration fluids, while the consistency of results was more equation dependent.