Thermal impact of the parallel laying of oil/gas pipelines

Thermal impact of the parallel laying of gas and oil pipelines remains unclear though that of two oil pipelines has been relatively well studied. A numerical simulation method combined by finite volume and finite difference was used to investigate the complex heat transfer in three typical parallel laying patterns between gas and oil pipelines: hot oil pipeline with cold gas pipeline; cold oil pipeline with hot gas pipeline and hot oil pipeline with hot gas pipeline. In terms of these three different parallel laying cases, the present paper analyzed characteristics of the maximum differential temperature range and thermal distribution of oil/gas temperatures at different intervals along pipelines relative to the single laying. The numerical simulation results can provide some guidelines for designs and safe operations of the parallel laying of oil/gas pipelines.