SIMPLIFIED HYDRAULIC CALCULATION OF THE CRYOGENIC PIPELINE OF EXTERNAL FACILITIES FOR FILLING LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS

Abstract

Natural gas is a mineral that is the most environmentally friendly energy fossil raw material. In recent decades, proven natural gas reserves have equaled oil reserves in terms of their indicators and, moreover, continue to grow actively. In this regard, the issue of transportation and storage of natural gas becomes relevant. One actively developing area has become the industry of natural gas liquefaction, transportation and distribution.The paper discusses the issues of shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to gas tankers during its large-tonnage production. The authors propose the use of remote filling systems (VSN) for LNG in a similar way to similar devices for filling oil into tankers. However, the main feature of the VSN LNG is the cryogenic pipeline from the onshore facilities to the VSN. In this regard, it is necessary to make a simplified mathematical model of a cryogenic pipeline taking into account heat exchange with the environment and heat release during energy dissipation due to viscous friction forces.In the course of numerical simulation, the dependence of the maximum pumping distance was obtained for a given difference between the temperature of LNG on shore facilities and the maximum required temperature of LNG loading into a gas carrier. The influence of each component of the heat flow equation — heat exchange with the environment and LNG heating due to viscous friction forces was also evaluated.As an example, a section with a length of 10 km was selected and a simulation of the temperature distribution, as well as the required pressure on shore structures necessary to ensure a given loading speed of the gas carrier and the temperature of the supplied LNG was carried out.