Buried pipe heat transfer analysis

Hello, I’m a university student and I have got a class project on simscale. The Instructor wants me to model following heat transfer problem in simscale and then analyze it. For an analytical solution I’m okay but I have got no analysis software experience before. So please help :slight_smile:

  • A pipe carrying oil and having a diameter of 0.6 m is buried in soil of conductivity 0.6W/mK at a
    depth of 6m. The surface temperature of the pipe is 80°C. The surface of the soil is at –10°C.
    Determine the heat loss from the pipe for 1 m length. If the velocity is 2 m/s and the density is
    900 kg/m3 and specific heat 2000 J/kgK determine the temperature drop in flow through a distance
    of 100 m.

** This problem will be solved as :

a) Create a solid geometry of the problem as a thin plate to perform 2D analysis.

b) Transfer geometry to SimScale.

c) Create Mesh (Tertrahedral of hexahedral)

d) Impose boundary conditions. On front and back surfaces of the plate, impose insulated or symmetry bc to simulate 2D problem.

e) Solve the problem and postprocess results for the quantities asked in the problem.

Solve the problem with 3 different mesh densities (Coarse, Medium, Fine) and compare these results with shape factor results.

Hey ttarhan,

It sounds like an interesting problem. Do you also know the material and the thickness of the pipe?

As for the step by step suggested by your teacher, there could be some issues. SimScale won’t generate 2d meshes, you can only generate (and run simulations on) meshes with volume.
To me the best course of action would be to create a 1 meter long pipe geometry and do a conjugate heat transfer analysis.
Hex meshes would be preferred over tet meshes for this case. SimScale offers an automated hex meshing tool.
Browsing public projets is also a good idea as you might stumble upon projects that are similar to yours.

Let us know how it goes and if you have more questions as you progress.

/Ric

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