A Simple Model for Predicting Heat Loss and Temperature Profiles in Insulated Pipelines

Abstract

Summary Accurate predictions of heat loss and temperature profile in oil-and gas-production pipelines are essential to designing and evaluating pipeline operations. Although some sophisticated computer packages are available for such purposes, their accuracies suffer from numerical treatments and model-building skills of inexperienced users. A simple and accurate analytical heat-transfer model is highly desirable. This paper presents three analytical heat-transfer solutions for predicting heat loss and temperature profiles in pipelines transporting petroleum fluids. The three solutions consist of one steadystate-flow solution and two transient-flow solutions. The two transient-flow solutions are for startup mode and flow-rate-change mode (shutting down is a special mode in which the flow rate changes to zero). An application example is presented to illustrate how the models can be used in insulation design of an offshore pipeline.