Abstract
The method of winding a heating wire and covering it with insulation materials has been widely used to prevent freezing during winter in outdoor firefighting pipes, which have a low amount of water flowing inside. However, several issues must be considered when using a heating wire, such as the hardening of its sheath, the outbreak of fire owing to electric leakage or short-circuiting, and difficulties in maintenance and repair. A freeze-protection system using a metal heater was developed to solve these problems. Thermal flow was analyzed using ANSYS CFX by varying the pipe diameter, insulation thickness, and outdoor temperature. Based on the obtained results, a regression equation was derived to predict the water temperature using the Minitab software. This study defined the recommended installation interval of the metal heater for frost prevention as the point at which the temperature inside the core of the pipe was maintained above 0 °C or higher. Under the same experimental conditions, the recommended installation intervals obtained via thermal fluid and regression analyses were 2.6 and 2.7 m, respectively. These values differed from the recommended installation interval of 2.9 m, derived from the actual experiment, by a maximum of 0.3 m.
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