The role of the axial heat fluxes in the thermal fatigue assessment of piping

Abstract

Thermal fatigue is a structural damage of materials induced by the cyclic thermal loads that are frequently generated by the changes of fluid temperature inside of pipes. Among the thermal fatigue assessment methods we find the one-dimensional (1D) approach. Thermal, mechanical and fatigue analyses are performed for the pipe wall assuming that the distribution of temperatures only varies along the wall thickness. On the other hand, pipe regions with higher stress oscillations are those where the fluid temperature changes spatially, meaning cold or hot spots near the pipe surface, and with low frequencies. Spatial fluid temperature differences generate heat fluxes within the pipe wall which can’t be reproduced with 1D methods. For this reason, the present work focuses on understanding the wall temperature distributions for different values of heat fluxes and frequencies of fluid temperature. Due to the implication in wall temperature measurements, the heat fluxes and frequencies effects on temperature readings of wall thermocouples are also investigated.In this paper, the influence of axial heat flux in a pipe wall is studied. The temperature distribution within the pipe wall is analyzed considering a fluid temperature signal in the proximity of the pipe surface with axial temperature dependence. The effect of the temperature fluctuations frequency is also investigated. The two-dimensional finite difference equations for the transient temperature of a pipe wall, as well as one-dimensional equations, have been derived in cylindrical coordinates. The analyses contemplate different values of the heat transfer coefficient between the fluid and wall. The results show that temperature distributions from 1D analyses are more conservative for the calculation of thermal stresses than considering axial heat fluxes. However, surface temperature amplitudes obtained from thermocouples readings may be underestimated if the spatial heat fluxes in the fluid near the pipe surface are not taken into account.