Publication Date:
2016-04-29
Description:
The hydrocarbon seas of Titan, discovered by the Cassini/Huygens mission are among the most mysterious and interesting features of this moon. In the future, a possible dedicated planetary probe will certainly measure the speed of sound in this cryogenic liquid, as was planned in the case of Huygens landing in a sea. Previous theoretical studies of such acoustic measurements were based on simple models, leading in some cases to unphysical situations. Employed in a vast body of chemical engineering works, the state-of-the-art perturbed-chain statistical associating fluid theory (PC-SAFT) model has been recently introduced in studies aimed at Titan. Here, I revisit the issue of the speed of sound in Titan's liquids, in light of this theory. I describe, in detail, the derivation of the speed of sound from the chosen equation of state and the potential limitations of the approach. To make estimations of the composition of a ternary liquid mixture N 2 :CH 4 :C 2 H 6 from speed-of-sound measurements an original inversion algorithm is proposed. It is shown that 50 measures between 90 and 100 K are enough to ensure an accuracy of the derived compositions of better than 10 per cent. The influence of the possible presence of propane is also investigated.
Print ISSN:
0035-8711
Electronic ISSN:
1365-2966
Topics:
Physics
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