5. Question: Steady-State Conduction through a Pipe Wall

Question:

Diagram:

Solution:

The heat flux going from the crude oil through the inner steel tube wall to the inner surface of the insulation is equal to the heat flux going from the inner surface of the insulation through the insulation and outer steel tube wall to the ocean water. These heat fluxes can be written in terms of temperature differences and sums of thermal resistances and set to be equal to each other:

We want to find the temperature of the crude oil, so rearrange:

Since we have derived the thermal conduction resistance for a pipe wall in section 4, we can easily find all the thermal resistances:

Substituting all these values back into the rearranged equation above and performing the calculation results in the maximum temperature of the crude oil being equal to 70.5 degrees Celsius.