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Heat loss/gain takes place from a pipe carrying hotter/ colder fluid than
ambient temperature. Insulation reduces the heat loss to surroundings.
Heat loss depends upon number of factors like insulation thickness,
ambient temperature, wind speed etc. This article shows how to calculate
heat loss from an insulated pipe and a bare pipe to surroundings.
A 3" Carbon steel pipe is carrying hot oil at 180C and insulated with 50
mm thick calcium silicate insulation. Insulation is cladded with a sheet
with surace emissivity of 0.9. Ambient temperature is 28C and wind
velocity is 3.5 m/s. Calculate surface temperature and heat loss from
insulated and bare pipe.
where, kPIPE, kINSULATION are thermal conductivities of pipe and insulation. h inis
heat transfer coefficient for fluid flowing in pipe and h air is heat transfer
coefficient due to air flowing outside the pipe. The first two terms of
denominator in above equation are generally smaller compared to
remaining terms and can be neglected. For this example first term due to
pipe fluid is ignored.
AIR
Air side heat transfer is due to combined effect of convection and radiation.
Assume a temperature at cladding surface t_surface and steel pipe
surfacet_interface. Calculate average air film temperature as following.
t_average = ( t_surface + t_ambient )/ 2
h_radiation
Heat transfer coefficient due to radiation is calculated using following
relation.
h_radiation = (t_average4 - t_ambient4)/ (t_average - t_ambient)
h_convection
Convective heat transfer coefficient comprises of forced and free
convection. Forced convection can be modelled based on correlation by
Churchill and Bernstein.
h_forced = Nu.k_air / D3
h_free = Nu.k_air / D3
0.25
Above steps are repeated with these new estimates till there is negligible
difference in temperature.
Heat loss per unit length of pipe is estimated as following.
HeatLoss = D3 Q
Bare Pipe
For heat loss from bare pipe all above steps are repeated with
resistance due to insulation not considered.
For this example surface temperature and heat loss are as following.
(17)
where
T1 inlet temperature
T2 outlet temperature
Tamb ambient temperature outside of pipe
Uoverall overall heat transfer coefficient
Q volumetric flow rate
A heat transfer area
cp specific heat coefficient at constant pressure
fluid density
Equation (17) computes pipe outlet temperature based on inlet temperature, ambient temperature,
fluid flow rate and pipe material. Uoverall consists of forced convection heat transfer from the fluid to
the pipe wall, conduction through the pipe wall and free (still air) convection away from the pipe to
the ambient. There are also conduction paths from the pipe to structure though pipe supports. The
area is the heat transfer area (pipe circumference x length).
Heat loss from 1/2" to 12" steel pipes - at various temperature differences between pipes and
surrounding air - are indicated in the diagram and table below:
1 kW (kJ/s) = 102.0 kpm/s = 859.9 kcal/h = 3,413 Btu/h = 1.360 hk = 1.341 hp = 738 ft lb/s =
1,000 J/s = 3.6x106 J/h
(mm)
(inch)
50
60
75
100
110
125
140
150
165
195
225
280
15
1/2
30
40
60
90
130
155
180
205
235
280
375
575
20
3/4
35
50
70
110
160
190
220
255
290
370
465
660
25
40
60
90
130
200
235
275
305
355
455
565
815
32
1 1/4
50
70
110
160
240
290
330
375
435
555
700
1000
(mm)
(inch)
50
60
75
100
110
125
140
150
165
195
225
280
40
1 1/2
55
80
120
180
270
320
375
420
485
625
790
1120
50
65
95
150
220
330
395
465
520
600
770
975
1390
65
2 1/2
80
120
170
260
390
465
540
615
715
910
1150
1650
80
100
140
210
300
470
560
650
740
860
1090
1380
1980
100
120
170
260
380
585
700
820
925
1065
1370
1740
2520
150
170
250
370
540
815
970
1130
1290
1470
1910
2430
3500
200
220
320
470
690
1040
1240
1440
1650
1900
2440
3100
4430
250
10
270
390
570
835
1250
1510
1750
1995
2300
2980
3780
5600
300
12
315
460
670
980
1470
1760
2060
2340
2690
3370
4430
6450
The heat loss value must be corrected by the correction factor for certain applications:
Application
Correction factor
1.1
1.0
0.65
1.0
0.90
0.75