Numerical Study on the Characteristic of Temperature Drop of Crude Oil in a Model Oil Tanker Subjected to Oscillating Motion

Guojun Yu, Qiuli Yang, Bing Dai, Zaiguo Fu and Duanlin Lin
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Guojun Yu: Merchant Marine College, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China
Qiuli Yang: Merchant Marine College, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China
Bing Dai: China Petroleum Technology & Development Corporation, Beijing 100009, China
Zaiguo Fu: College of Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai University of Electric Power, Shanghai 200090, China
Duanlin Lin: Hubei Subsurface Multi-Scale Imaging Key Laboratory, Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: During tanker transportation, crude oil is heated occasionally to ensure its good flowability. Whether the heating scheme is scientific or not directly influences the safety and economy of the tanker transportation. The determination of a scientific heating scheme requires fully understanding of the characteristic of oil temperature drop during tanker transportation. However, the oscillation caused by the marine environment leads to totally different thermal and hydraulic characteristic from that of the static cases. Therefore, a systematic investigation of thermal and hydraulic process of the motion system is more than necessary. Since the marine is subjected to rotational and/or translational motion, the essence of the temperature drop process is an unsteady mixed convection process accompanied with free liquid surface movement. In this study, the movement of the free liquid surface and the characteristic of the temperature drop of the crude oil in the cargo when the tanker is subjected to rotational motion were investigated using ANSYS FLUENT (15.0, Ansys, Inc., Canonsburg, PA, USA) with user defined functions. The research result shows that the oscillating motion leads to the motion of the free surface, converting the natural convection for the static case to forced convection, and thus significantly enhancing the temperature drop rate. It is found that the temperature drop rate is positively related to the rotational angular velocity.

Keywords: oil tanker; temperature drop; oscillating motion; numerical simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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