Conclusions
In this paper experimental data on the velocity of sound for some hydrocarbons systems at various temperature, pressure and composition from atmospheric to 100 MPa were reported. In addition a simple relation based on the principles of corresponding states and with use of molar refraction has been proposed which can be used for prediction of speed of sound in liquid hydrocarbon systems for pressures up to 150 MPa. Although the
method was developed based on two reference n-alkane hydrocarbon compounds but it is applicable to a wide range of pure compounds, defined and un defined mixtures. The proposed method was evaluated against some 1303 data points for pure
hydrocarbons from C3 to C36 and pressures up to 150 MPa , some binary and ternary mixtures (961 data points) as well as some petroleum fractions and crude oils(156 data points) and an over all average error of about 2% was obtained for over 2400 data points. The evaluations show that the proposed method can be used for very heavy hydrocarbons and heavy oil systems which may contain light gases. The main required parameter is mixture molar mass and some standard methods are provided for calculation of required parameters for the proposed method. The results could be used to estimate other thermo physical properties needed for heavy oil exploration and production.