Supercritical vaporization:: Distinguishable fluid regions -: art. no. 026306

The vaporization of a cold fluid pocket suddenly set into a hot, otherwise quiescent, atmosphere at supercritical pressures is analyzed. It is shown that at supercritical but moderate pressures and high ambient temperatures, the position where the thermal expansion coefficient reaches its maximum defines a relatively thin transition region that separates two distinguishable fluid regions: A cold liquidlike region where the heat transport is dominated by conduction, and a hot gaslike region where the heat transport is convective and conductive owed to the thermal expansion induced Stefan flow.