Numerical Study on the Soil Temperature Field after Shutdown of Hot Oil Pipeline

Shutdown is inevitable for hot oil pipelines. Coagulation accidents, which bring enormous difficult to restart, are possible after temperature dropping to a definite value. In order to avoid the accident, it is necessary to study the rule of soil temperature field around the pipeline after shutting down, then ascertain the stop time permissible. The mathematical model and boundary condition of soil temperature field in finite region are established through analysis geometry model of underground heated pipeline. Then it is solved by PHOENICS software. The results of numerical calculation based on PHOENICS coincide well with the test data observed in literature seven. The error is less than 2%. It shows that soil temperature field around pipeline at shutting down status can entirety been simulated using PHOENICS software and it is a shortcut to that. The study lays the foundation to the research on stop time permission at intermittence transportation process and restart.