Numerical study of steady natural convection in a liquefied natural gas cylindrical storage tank equipped with baffles

摘要

In this paper, a study of cooling system for a liquefied natural gas storage tank is conducted. Our objective is to remedy the heat ingress to the liquefied natural gas from the environment using baffles toward limiting temperature elevation in the tank, and then the Boil-off Gas (BOG) formation. A specific code based on the finite volume method is developed to supply a fine knowledge of the hydrodynamic and thermal liquefied natural gas characteristics in the cylindrical tank heated from bottom and lateral surfaces. The effect of the number, position and dimension of baffles, on the flow structure and thermal behavior, has been analyzed. According to our simulation results, the baffles should be placed at the top of tank nearby the lateral wall as the liquefied natural gas dimensionless average temperature can be reduced by 36%. The installation of four rectangular baffles, equally spaced around the perimeter of the tank, gives better homogenization of the temperature field and decreases the average temperature by about 44% in order to limit BOG formation. Finally, two correlations of the Nusselt number are established for the flat rectangular baffle plates and the lateral surface of the cylindrical liquefied natural gas storage tank as a function of the Rayleigh number, as well as the baffle number. Scaling of these correlations with the Rayleigh number gives exponents of 0.25 and 0.18 for lateral surface and baffle, respectively, which are in good agreement with literature.