Numerical Simulation for Preheating New Submarine Hot Oil Pipelines

Yong Wang, Nan Wei, Dejun Wan, Shouxi Wang and Zongming Yuan
Additional contact information
Yong Wang: College of Petroleum Engineering, Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi’an 710065, Shaanxi, China
Nan Wei: School of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, Sichuan, China
Dejun Wan: Sinopec Petroleum Engineering Cooperation, Dongying 257088, Shandong, China
Shouxi Wang: College of Petroleum Engineering, Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi’an 710065, Shaanxi, China
Zongming Yuan: School of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, Sichuan, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-26

Abstract: For new submarine hot oil pipelines, accurate simulation of preheating is difficult owing to complex transient flow and coupled heat transfer happening. Using quasi-steady equations to simulate preheating is inadequate as the hydraulic transient phenomenon is neglected. Considering this fact, this paper constructs an unsteady flow and heat transfer coupled mathematical model for the preheating process. By combining the double method of characteristics (DMOC) and finite element method (FEM), a numerical methodology is proposed, namely, DMOC-FEM. Its accuracy is validated by field data collected from the Bohai sea, China, showing the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 4.27%. Simulation results demonstrate that the preheating medium mainly warms submarine pipe walls rather than the surrounding subsea mud. Furthermore, during the preheating process, the equivalent overall heat transfer coefficients deduced performs more applicably than the inverse-calculation method in presenting the unsteady propagation of fluid temperature with time and distance. Finally, according to the comparison results of 11 preheating plans, subject to a rated heat power and maximum flow, the preheating parameter at a lower fluid temperature combined with a higher flow rate will produce a better preheating effect.

Keywords: submarine hot oil pipeline; preheating process; numerical simulation; double method of characteristics (DMOC); finite element method (FEM); heat transfer coefficient (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: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/18/3518/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/18/3518/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:18:p:3518-:d:266786

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().