Heat transfer characteristics of oil receiving and delivering process in crude oil storage tanks

The study used numerical simulation methods to investigate the influence of different oil receiving and delivering cases on the non-uniform physical field within the storage tank. The results showed that the evolution of the physical field can be divided into three stages: diffusion, suppression, and equilibrium. The computational domain was divided into three zones based on the crude oil heating rate: significant influence zone, indirect influence zone, and minimal influence zone, and the indirect influence zone exhibits the most pronounced variations in velocity and temperature. The process of receiving oil with high-flow rate and low-temperature was found to be more conducive to the full use of heat in the tank when the heat exchanging quantity per unit time was the same. The synergistic effect of tubular heating and oil receiving and delivering resulted in a 21 % higher average temperature increase rate than the sum of the two processes. Finally, the study quantitatively described the linear relationship between the average temperature in each region and factors such as oil inlet velocity, oil receiving temperature, oil receiving and delivering time, and heating tube temperature, providing theoretical guidance for process planning in actual oil storage tank receiving and delivering.