Study on Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics of LNG Expansion Bend

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-708-3_23How to use a DOI?

Keywords

LNG pipeline; flow state; pre-cooling; temperature differences; Keep cold

Abstract

During the operation of an LNG receiving terminal, the fluids within the feed pipes are typically low-temperature media such as nitrogen and liquefied natural gas. The pipelines frequently operate under ultra-low temperature conditions, and rapid temperature changes often lead to issues of thermal expansion and contraction, as well as thermal stress, which may subsequently result in a series of serious consequences and potential risks such as pipeline deformation, rupture, and leakage. Reducing the adverse effects of thermal expansion and contraction, thermal stress, and other factors in LNG pipelines is a critical issue that needs to be addressed during pipeline design and construction. In engineering, the installation of expansion bends is commonly used to address such issues. Their main function is to absorb pipeline deformation during expansion and contraction, thereby preventing bending deformation or cracks in the pipeline due to thermal stress, reducing pipeline damage, and ensuring the stable operation of the LNG pipeline system. Based on actual data from an LNG receiving terminal, this study constructs a three-dimensional model of the feed pipeline expansion bend and conducts numerical simulations of the flow and heat transfer processes under pre-cooling and cold retention cycling conditions. The temperature field distribution characteristics of the feed pipeline expansion bend are analyzed. The research results indicate that during the pre-cooling and cold retention cycling processes, the fluid temperature inside the pipeline exhibits a clear stratification phenomenon in the direction of gravity. When the fluid flows through the expansion bend, this stratified structure is disrupted, thereby reducing the temperature difference between the top and bottom of the pipeline to a certain extent. The research findings not only provide a theoretical basis with reference value for the practical application of LNG pipeline engineering but also offer beneficial guidance for engineering design and optimization in related fields.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xianfeng Huang
AU  - Hongyu Zhou
AU  - Zhiguo Zhang
AU  - Zhen Li
AU  - Yunwei Zhang
AU  - Jiangkai Lei
AU  - Yanbing Wang
AU  - Xu Sun
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/09
TI  - Study on Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics of LNG Expansion Bend
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 10th International Conference on Advances in Energy Resources and Environment Engineering (ICAESEE 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 198
EP  - 209
SN  - 2589-4943
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-708-3_23
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-708-3_23
ID  - Huang2025
ER  -