Method for simulating performance of lng ambient air vaporizer under frosting condition

A method for simulating performance of an LNG ambient air vaporizer under a frosting condition, includes the following steps:

• step 1, performing site operation test on the LNG ambient air vaporizer, measuring site ambient temperature T0, humidity H0 and atmospheric pressure P0, and measuring, at a certain operating moment tn, pressure Pin of liquefied natural gas at a vaporizer inlet and pressure Pout of natural gas at a vaporizer outlet, flow velocity Vin of the liquefied natural gas at the vaporizer inlet and temperature Tin of the liquefied natural gas at the vaporizer inlet, outer wall temperature Ts at different positions of each frosted finned tube of the vaporizer, frost layer temperature Tf, frost layer thickness df, and air flow velocity Va outside a frost layer on a surface of the finned tube, the different positions referring to at least three equidistant point positions of an outer wall of a fin of each frosted finned tube from top to bottom;
• step 2, performing, by data processing software, fitting analysis on the collected frost layer temperature Tf and frost layer thickness df at the different positions of all the frosted finned tubes at the certain operating moment t, and the air flow velocity Va outside the frost layer on the surface of the finned tube, and data of the outer wall temperature Ts of the finned tube respectively, and obtaining, by a least square method, fitting relational expressions df=fd(Ts)=A1Ts2+B1Ts+C1, Tf=f (Ts)=A2Ts+B2, and Va=fV(Ts)=A3Ts2+B3Ts+C3 between the outer wall temperature Ts of all the frosted finned tubes of the whole vaporizer and the frost layer thickness df, the frost layer temperature Tf and the air flow velocity Va outside the frost layer on the surface of the finned tube at the certain operating moment tn, A1, B1, C1, A2, B2, A3, B3, and C3 in the formula being respectively fitted constants;
• step 3, establishing a calculation model for an equivalent thermal conductivity coefficient of the LNG ambient air vaporizer during frosting at the certain operating moment tn:
• transforming a sum of increased frost layer thermal resistance Rf of each frosted finned tube in unit length at the certain operating moment tn and thermal resistance Ro of the finned tube body in unit length into equivalent thermal contact resistance Re of the finned tube in unit length under a non-frosting condition, and representing an equivalent thermal conductivity coefficient λe of the equivalent thermal contact resistance Re as a function of the outer wall temperature Ts of the frosted finned tube in unit length, the unit length being a length of a minimum mesh during geometric meshing of the vaporizer;
• wherein
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• wherein, parameters λ, din, dout, A2, A2, A2″, Am, and β in the formula are all constant values;
• λ is a thermal conductivity coefficient of a vaporizer material, namely aluminum alloy;
• din is an internal diameter of the finned tube, and dout is an external diameter of the finned tube;
• A2 is an external surface area of the finned tube in unit length;
• A2 is a surface area of a non-fin part outside the finned tube in unit length;
• A2″ is a surface area of a fin part outside the finned tube in unit length;
• Am=/*[36/(λ*δ)]1/2, where l is a fin height, and δ is a thickness of the fin;
• β is a finning coefficient of the finned tube, β=A0/A2, A0 is an internal surface area of the finned tube, and A2 is an external surface area of the finned tube;
• fV(Ts) is a function expression relational expression of the air flow velocity Va outside the frost layer, Va=fV(Ts), and Ts is the outer wall temperature at different positions of each frosted finned tube of the vaporizer;
• and Z(Ts) is a function expression relational expression of the frost layer thermal resistance Rf, Rf=Z(Ts)=df/λf=f (Ts)/g(Ts), where, g(Ts) is a function expression relational expression of the frost layer thermal conductivity coefficient λf, λf=g(Ts)=0.001202×(650e0.277[(fT(Ts)−273.15)])0.963;
• step 4, establishing an overall geometric model of the LNG ambient air vaporizer in simulation software, performing meshing and dividing of computational domain, selecting physical models and equations, setting material attributes and boundary conditions of the computational domain, adopting the equivalent thermal conductivity coefficient λe of the finned tube of the vaporizer as the thermal conductivity coefficient during frosting of the vaporizer material, performing solving and initialized setting, and then performing simulation calculation, specifically as follows:
• S1:
• establishing, by three-dimensional geometric modeling software, the overall geometric model of the LNG ambient air vaporizer in a ratio of 1:1, and then performing, by finite element meshing software, meshing and dividing of the computational domain of the overall geometric model;
• dividing the computational domain into an LNG fluid domain, a vaporizer solid domain and an air fluid domain;
• the LNG fluid domain is a flow region of LNG in an internal channel of the vaporizer;
• the vaporizer solid domain is a vaporizer body;
• and the air fluid domain is an air flow region outside the vaporizer body;
• S2:
• importing the meshed overall geometric model of the LNG ambient air vaporizer into fluid analysis software, and adopting the LNG fluid domain, the vaporizer solid domain and the air fluid domain as the computational domain;
• setting a contact surface between the LNG fluid domain and the vaporizer solid domain and a contact surface between the vaporizer solid domain and the air fluid domain as Interface surfaces, and checking a Couple option in Interface setting, so that the corresponding contact surface can complete heat transfer;
• S3:
• enabling a gravity model, a multi-phase model, a turbulence model, a boiling phase change model, a continuity equation, a momentum equation, an energy equation and a component transport equation in the fluid analysis software, and adopting a standard wall function method for near-wall processing;
• adopting a Mixture model as the multi-phase model;
• adopting a Realizable k-& turbulence model as the turbulence model, and adopting an evaporation-condensation Lee model as the boiling phase change model;
• S4:
• setting the material attributes of the computational domain:
• respectively introducing LNG and NG fluid materials in the fluid analysis software, then setting the LNG fluid material as a first term in the multi-phase model, setting phase change from LNG to NG, and selecting the evaporation-condensation Lee model for a reaction mechanism;
• introducing an aluminum alloy solid material in the fluid analysis software, adopting physical data in a software material library as parameters of the aluminum alloy solid material, then modifying the thermal conductivity coefficient of the aluminum alloy solid material from the constant value λ to a value represented by a piecewise polynomial temperature function method, setting the thermal conductivity coefficient of the vaporizer material within a frosting temperature range as the equivalent thermal conductivity coefficient λe=F(Ts), and setting the thermal conductivity coefficient of the vaporizer material within a non-frosting temperature range as the constant value λ;
• introducing a wet air mixed material in the fluid analysis software, the wet air mixed material including air and water vapor, and physical property data in the software material library are adopted as material attributes of the wet air mixed material;
• S5:
• setting the boundary conditions of the computational domain:
• setting an outlet of the LNG fluid domain as a pressure outlet boundary, and adopting the pressure Pout at the vaporizer outlet tested on site as pressure;
• setting an inlet of the LNG fluid domain as a velocity inlet boundary, and adopting the flow velocity Vin and temperature Tin at the vaporizer inlet tested on site as velocity and temperature;
• setting a top surface of the air fluid domain above the vaporizer and a side surface of the air fluid domain around the vaporizer as pressure inlet boundaries, adopting the atmospheric pressure P0 and ambient temperature T0 tested on site as pressure and temperature, and setting air humidity of the air fluid domain for simulating the air humidity according to the ambient humidity tested on site;
• setting a bottom surface of the air fluid domain at a bottom of the vaporizer as a pressure outlet boundary;
• defining the air fluid domain in this step as a hexahedron capable of surrounding the vaporizer, space, except for the vaporizer, inside the hexahedron representing air outside the vaporizer, and the top surface, the side surface and the bottom surface of the air fluid domain referring to a top surface, a side surface and a bottom surface of the hexahedron outside the whole vaporizer;
• S6:
• performing initialization setting by adopting a SIMPLE algorithm in the fluid analysis software as a solving method for the geometric model meshes divided in step S1, and then performing calculation simulation on the geometric model established in step S1;
• stopping calculation and outputting result data from numerical simulation in heat transfer of the vaporizer if a residual variance curve converges and the monitored NG outlet temperature and flow velocity do not change any more;
• or else, continuing to operate;
• and
• step 5, importing the result data from numerical simulation into post-processing software for analysis, displaying a temperature cloud diagram on a surface of the LNG ambient air vaporizer, and a temperature cloud diagram, a velocity cloud diagram and a component cloud diagram of the LNG fluid domain in the tube of the vaporizer in the post-processing software, selecting an outlet section of the LNG fluid domain, to obtain LNG outlet temperature and outlet flow velocity, and selecting the component cloud diagram of the LNG fluid domain, to obtain proportions of a liquid phase section, a two-phase section and a gas-phase section in the fluid domain;
• and checking temperature, heat flux and other thermal parameters at different position points or sections of the surface of the vaporizer, so as to visually acquire fluid-solid conjugate heat transfer characteristics and vaporization performance of the LNG ambient air vaporizer under the frosting condition.