Simulation of oil flow in a heat traced piping segment – COMSOL versus analytical trends

Abstract

Oil flow in a circular piping usually requires excessive modeling with detailed correlations to describe the oil flow behavior. The ineffective pour point depressants and the inefficient heat tracing makes oil flow simulation an essential task. Due to the varying of oil characteristics, a robust modeling approach is necessary to guarantee the integrity of the oil flow in the piping system and to avoid additional costs. In this work, a proposed approach coordinates the modeling tools (e.g. Aspen HYSYS®, COMSOL Multiphysics®) to simulate the oil flow in a circular pipe satisfactorily. The oil properties have been extracted from Aspen HYSYS® and used in COMSOL Multiphysics® to describe the varying in oil flow characteristics. Numerous computational trials have been conducted to estimate the oil temperature profiles in the axial and radial directions to ensure the oil flow above the pour point. Moreover, the numerical results were computed to estimate the oil temperature profiles for constant and temperature-dependent oil properties. Finally, an analytical approach was established using dimensional analysis to compare with COMSOL numerical results at constant oil properties. Both results showed a consistent trend match.

Keywords:

• Oil flow modeling
• heat traced pipe segment
• COMSOL
• Aspen HYSYS
• simulation

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.