Novel thermal method for determining properties of compressed natural gas

Abstract

The article describes a new method for obtaining fuel properties, derived from the thermal properties of natural gas fuel mixtures. By measuring the thermal conductivity and the dynamic response with the help of a heated Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS), input values for a mathematical correlation are obtained which predict the calorific value of the gas. In this paper the fundamentals of the theoretical gas properties, the sensor operation and the first results on a gas test bench are presented.

Keywords

• calorific value
• methane number
• heat capacitance
• temperature conductance
• natural gas quality