Heat Transfer Analysis Of Large Liquefied Petroleum Gas Storage Tank And Application Of Reflective Coating

With the continuous improvement of the living standard in our country,people's awareness of environmental protection is gradually increasing.Especially in recent years,the trend of increasingly serious air pollution makes the urgent use of clean energy.Liquefied petroleum gas(LPG)is one of clean,environmentally friendly,easy-to-use and high-efficiency energy sources with high heat generation and low pollution.Therefore,LPG has been widely used in industrial production and daily life.LPG storage tank is exposed to the air for a long time during use.Under the influence of ambient temperature changes and solar radiation,the LPG storage tank is affected by external light and thermal environment,resulting in an uneven temperature field inside the tank.Since the LPG has low boiling point and large volume expansion coefficient,as the heat of the external environment is continuously transmitted through the tank wall to the tank,the LPG evaporates and the pressure increases.When the pressure increases beyond the capacity of the tank,there is a risk of combustion and explosion.Therefore,the study of the heat transfer process of sunshine of LPG storage tank has drawn wide attention of scholars.In recent years,thermal insulation coating,also called solar heat reflection coating,has been produced.Its action mechanism is mainly based on the distribution of the solar spectrum,a part of the reflected sunlight to produce heat energy.Therefore,the application of reflective coatings on LPG storage tanks has become a new technology for cooling LPG storage tanks.In this article,based on the FLUENT software,the solar heat transfer model of three-dimensional LPG storage tank was established.Parametric studies are conducted to investigate the effects of various factors on the thermal responses of LPG storage tank in respect with solar radiation,ambient temperature,wind speed,geographical location,material parameters of the tank and coating parameters.First of all,based on the theories of solar physics,heat and mass transfer,and fluid dynamics,the correlation mechanisms between LPG storage tank and the external environment were studied.The calculation model of the temperature response of the LPG tank due to sunshine effect was established.By setting physical parameters of materials in FLUENT software,the appropriate physical models and solution methods were selected in order to simulate the solar heat transfer process.By changing the boundary conditions,such as coating parameters,the different temperature distributions and lose effectiveness were investigated.The results show that the reflective coating has good thermal insulation effect,which largely ensures the stability of the LPG.The performance degradation of the reflective coating shows a great influence on the heat transfer process of the LPG storage tank.The accumulation of heat in the LPG storage tank due to changes of external environment has little effect on the heat transfer process.