Steel tank - QuickField simulation example
The steel tank contains hot water. Determine the wall temperature and heat losses.
How to calculate heat flux and air-side temperature of a steel tank wall?
Answer Typical applications Geometry
Given
Task
Solution
Result
*Rajput R.K.(2010). Engineering Thermodynamics, Third Edition. Sudbury, MA:Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Page 805. Engineering question
Model a representative section of the tank wall, apply the thermal boundary conditions, and calculate the average heat flux and air-side wall temperature.
steel storage tanks, cylindrical vessels, industrial liquid tanks
Download
Simulation problem
Problem Type
Plane-parallel problem of heat transfer.
Hot water temperature t°=95°C;
Water-to-wall convection coefficient α = 2850 W/m²°C;
Cooling air temperature 15°C;
Wall-to-air convection coefficient α = 10 W/m²°C;
Wall thermal conductivity λ = 50 W/m·K.
Calculate the average heat flux density passing through the tank wall and the wall air-side temperature.
To solve the problem it is enough to simulate a small piece of the tank wall. Heat losses (heat flux density) are calculated as a heat flux value divided by the wall surface area value.
Heat flux through the wall is 795 W per 1 meter square, average surface temperature is 94.5°C.
QuickField
Theory*
Error
Wall outside temperature
94.53°C
94.52°C
0.011%
Flux density, W/m²
795.3
795.2
0.013%
Video
Related examples