Numerical simulation on the thermal process of waxy crude oil during its storage under different wall temperatures

Abstract

This study aims to elucidate the underlying mechanism of the association between heat characteristics and influencing factors and to provide theoretical guidance for increasing safety and economics during waxy crude oil storage. Physical and mathematical models with the numerical approaches to represent the static cooling of waxy crude oil are established. Based on the numerical simulations, the effect of the wall temperature on the temperature and velocity distribution is mainly confined to the thermal influence region near the wall, and it increases with the cooling process. The gelation of waxy crude oil near the wall is the most significant and highly correlated with the convection heat transfer coefficient near the wall, so both are significantly affected by the wall temperature. In addition, based on the partial correlation and grey correlation analysis, the effect of the wall temperature is quantitatively analysed. The results show that the correlation between wall temperature and average cooling rate is very significant. In contrast, the correlation between sidewall temperature and thermal characteristics and its derived gelation behaviour are more significant. Furthermore, detailed information on the correlation between the wall temperature and the parameters that characterize the thermal characteristics is obtained.