Heat Loss from Insulated Pipe

Heat loss/gain takes place from a pipe carrying hotter/ colder fluid than
ambient temperature. Insulation reduces the heat loss to surroundings.
Heat loss depends upon number of factors like insulation thickness,
ambient temperature, wind speed etc. This article shows how to calculate
heat loss from an insulated pipe and a bare pipe to surroundings.
A 3" Carbon steel pipe is carrying hot oil at 180C and insulated with 50
mm thick calcium silicate insulation. Insulation is cladded with a sheet
with surace emissivity of 0.9. Ambient temperature is 28C and wind
velocity is 3.5 m/s. Calculate surface temperature and heat loss from
insulated and bare pipe.

Overall heat transfer coefficient of an insulated pipe is defined as following.

where, kPIPE, kINSULATION are thermal conductivities of pipe and insulation. h inis
heat transfer coefficient for fluid flowing in pipe and h air is heat transfer
coefficient due to air flowing outside the pipe. The first two terms of
denominator in above equation are generally smaller compared to

remaining terms and can be neglected. For this example first term due to
pipe fluid is ignored.

Air Side Heat Transfer Coefficient, h

AIR

Air side heat transfer is due to combined effect of convection and radiation.
Assume a temperature at cladding surface t_surface and steel pipe
surfacet_interface. Calculate average air film temperature as following.
t_average = ( t_surface + t_ambient )/ 2

Estimate thermodynamic properties of air like thermal conductivity (k),

viscosity (), expansion coefficient ( = 1/t_average), air density (),
kinematic viscosity (), specific heat (Cp) and thermal diffusivity () at
average air film temperature. These properties are available in literature in
form of tables, these can be fitted into a polynomial form using excel's
LINEST function. Reynolds's number (Re), Prandtl number (Pr) and
Rayleigh number (Ra) are calculated based on above properties.

h_radiation
Heat transfer coefficient due to radiation is calculated using following
relation.
h_radiation = (t_average4 - t_ambient4)/ (t_average - t_ambient)

where is Stefan Boltzmann coefficient and is emissivity for cladded

surface.

h_convection
Convective heat transfer coefficient comprises of forced and free
convection. Forced convection can be modelled based on correlation by
Churchill and Bernstein.

h_forced = Nu.k_air / D3

Free convection is calculated based on correlation by Churchill and Chu.

h_free = Nu.k_air / D3

Combined heat transfer coefficient due to forced and free convection is

calculated using following relation.
Nu_combined = ( Nu_forced 4 + Nu_free 4)
h_convection = Nu_combined.k_air / D3

0.25

Air side heat transfer coefficient is calculated as following.

h_air = h_radiation + h_convection

Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient, U

Thermal conductivity for insulation material and pipe is available in
literature and depends upon temperature. It can be fitted into a polynomial
equation using LINEST function in excel. Heat transfer resistance due to
pipe and insulation is calculated using following relation.
r_pipe = D3.ln(D2/D1) / 2.k_pipe
r_insulation = D3.ln(D3/D2) / 2.k_insulation

Overall heat transfer coefficient is calculated as.

r_overall = r_pipe + r_insulation + 1/h_air
U = 1/r_overall

Heat flowing through insulation is estimated.

Q = (t_operating - t_ambient)/r_overall

A revised estimate for interface and surface temperature is made.

t_interface = t_operating - Q.r_pipe
t_surface = t_interface - Q.r_insulation

Above steps are repeated with these new estimates till there is negligible
difference in temperature.
Heat loss per unit length of pipe is estimated as following.
HeatLoss = D3 Q

Bare Pipe
For heat loss from bare pipe all above steps are repeated with
resistance due to insulation not considered.

r_pipe = D2.ln(D2/D1) / 2.k_pipe

r_overall = r_pipe + 1/h_air

For this example surface temperature and heat loss are as following.

Spreadsheet for Heat Loss from Insulated Pipe

Pipe Temperature Losses

Temperature losses through a pipe adhere to the following relationship

(17)

where
T1 inlet temperature
T2 outlet temperature
Tamb ambient temperature outside of pipe
Uoverall overall heat transfer coefficient
Q volumetric flow rate
A heat transfer area
cp specific heat coefficient at constant pressure

fluid density

Equation (17) computes pipe outlet temperature based on inlet temperature, ambient temperature,
fluid flow rate and pipe material. Uoverall consists of forced convection heat transfer from the fluid to
the pipe wall, conduction through the pipe wall and free (still air) convection away from the pipe to
the ambient. There are also conduction paths from the pipe to structure though pipe supports. The
area is the heat transfer area (pipe circumference x length).

Heat loss from 1/2" to 12" steel pipes - at various temperature differences between pipes and
surrounding air - are indicated in the diagram and table below:

1 kW (kJ/s) = 102.0 kpm/s = 859.9 kcal/h = 3,413 Btu/h = 1.360 hk = 1.341 hp = 738 ft lb/s =
1,000 J/s = 3.6x106 J/h

1 m (meter) = 3.2808 ft = 39.37 in = 1.0936 yd = 6.214x10 -4 mile

Heat loss from Fluid inside Pipe (W/m)

Nominal bore
Temperature Difference(oC)

(mm)

(inch)

50

60

75

100

110

125

140

150

165

195

225

280

15

1/2

30

40

60

90

130

155

180

205

235

280

375

575

20

3/4

35

50

70

110

160

190

220

255

290

370

465

660

25

40

60

90

130

200

235

275

305

355

455

565

815

32

1 1/4

50

70

110

160

240

290

330

375

435

555

700

1000

Heat loss from Fluid inside Pipe (W/m)

Nominal bore
Temperature Difference(oC)

(mm)

(inch)

50

60

75

100

110

125

140

150

165

195

225

280

40

1 1/2

55

80

120

180

270

320

375

420

485

625

790

1120

50

65

95

150

220

330

395

465

520

600

770

975

1390

65

2 1/2

80

120

170

260

390

465

540

615

715

910

1150

1650

80

100

140

210

300

470

560

650

740

860

1090

1380

1980

100

120

170

260

380

585

700

820

925

1065

1370

1740

2520

150

170

250

370

540

815

970

1130

1290

1470

1910

2430

3500

200

220

320

470

690

1040

1240

1440

1650

1900

2440

3100

4430

250

10

270

390

570

835

1250

1510

1750

1995

2300

2980

3780

5600

300

12

315

460

670

980

1470

1760

2060

2340

2690

3370

4430

6450

The heat loss value must be corrected by the correction factor for certain applications:

Application

Correction factor

Single pipe freely exposed

1.1

More than one pipe freely exposed

1.0

More than one pipe along the ceiling

0.65

Single pipe along skirting or riser

1.0

More than one pipe along skirting or riser

0.90

Single pipe along ceiling

0.75