Review

Steady state analysis of heat transfer in a fully buried crude oil pipeline
O.K. Otomi a, U.P. Onochie b,⇑, A.I. Obanor c
a Engineering & Technology Div. (ETD), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Abuja, Nigeria
b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu – Alike, Ebonyi State, Nigeria
c Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Benin, Nigeria
articleinfo
Article history:
Received 20 June 2019
Received in revised form 5 September 2019
Accepted 13 October 2019
Keywords:
Closed solution
Thermal resistance
Buried pipeline
Constant heat flux boundary condition
Bipolar cylindrical coordinates
Mapping
abstract
Heat loss in a buried pipeline is controlled by the pipeline thermal resistance. Heat loss results in crude
oil temperature drop which leads to wax formation and deposition and eventual blocking of the pipeline.
This work developed a model of heat transfer in the buried pipeline and obtained closed solution of the
thermal resistance of the pipeline with constant heat flux boundary condition. The result showed that the
resistance for the constant heat flux boundary condition is equal to the constant temperature resistance
plus an additional resistance. The result also showed that if the pipe is buried deeper than five times pipe
radius, the difference between the two resistances is less than 1%. By using data of a real buried pipeline,
it was shown that the thermal resistance increases with depth of burial and burial depth of 0.6–2.5 m is
most effective to conserve heat in buried pipelines.
_ 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Objectives of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Mathematical model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7. Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Declaration of Competing Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Appendix A. Supplementary material. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Introduction
When a liquid solution is cooled as it flows through a pipe by
virtue of heat transfer, a radial concentration gradient is established,
which causes mass transfer of solute to occur toward the
pipe wall. The solute precipitates off the solution in the neighbourhood
of the wall, and adheres perfectly to it. The deposited mass
gradually obstructs the pipe, affecting the pressure and the flow
fields. This is the process of wax deposition in pipes transporting
crude oil. As wax deposition narrows the effective flow area of
the pipe, delivery capacity reduces, delivery pressure increases
and if serious, blockage may occur. Therefore, it is necessary to
determine the overall heat transfer coefficient or thermal resistance
from the pipe wall to the environment to ensure accurate design of
the pipelines and selection of insulation materials (see Fig. 1).
Heat transfer from a buried pipeline is a real heat conduction
problem [1]. The issue of heat transfer from buried pipelines has
been widely studied. Bau and Saddhal [2] presented analytical
solution of heat losses from a buried pipe using isothermal boundary
conditions. The results include the temperature distribution of
the pipe and the thermal resistance of the pipe. They claimed their
prediction is accurate within 2%. Chung and Pei [3] introduced a
semi-analytic solution for heat transfer from a buried pipe with
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2019.118893
0017-9310/_ 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: onochieuche@yahoo.com (U.P. Onochie).
International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 146 (2020) 118893
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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
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