Oil products are stored or conditioned in tanks where they are maintained at a suitable temperature level in order to prevent solidification and to make pumping easy. In most applications heating is provided by an internal coil, fed by steam, which has to balance heat losses from tank walls, bottom and roof. Heat transfer occurs by different mechanisms, such as convection at both the internal and external surfaces, conduction through the tank walls and radiation at the external surfaces. Technical handbooks usually report empirical methods to attain a rough estimation of the heat transfer rate, to be intended as an order of magnitude useful to check the capacity of the steam boiler and coil. On the other side, approaches based on detailed modelling of heat transfer are more accurate but they are more complex and they require detailed information about product properties and boundary conditions. With regard to this, in the present work a simple but sufficiently accurate model to predict heat losses of oil tanks is presented. Application to a significant case is proposed and a sensitivity analysis on relevant parameters, such as insulation thickness, oil temperature, filling level and climate conditions is carried out.
A HEAT LOSS MODEL FOR OIL TANKS
COLOMBO, LUIGI PIETRO MARIA;DE ANTONELLIS, STEFANO;
2010-01-01
Abstract
Oil products are stored or conditioned in tanks where they are maintained at a suitable temperature level in order to prevent solidification and to make pumping easy. In most applications heating is provided by an internal coil, fed by steam, which has to balance heat losses from tank walls, bottom and roof. Heat transfer occurs by different mechanisms, such as convection at both the internal and external surfaces, conduction through the tank walls and radiation at the external surfaces. Technical handbooks usually report empirical methods to attain a rough estimation of the heat transfer rate, to be intended as an order of magnitude useful to check the capacity of the steam boiler and coil. On the other side, approaches based on detailed modelling of heat transfer are more accurate but they are more complex and they require detailed information about product properties and boundary conditions. With regard to this, in the present work a simple but sufficiently accurate model to predict heat losses of oil tanks is presented. Application to a significant case is proposed and a sensitivity analysis on relevant parameters, such as insulation thickness, oil temperature, filling level and climate conditions is carried out.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
